


win you over

by 180714jaehyun



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Falling In Love, M/M, Slow Burn, Truth or Dare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-01 09:25:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15771294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/180714jaehyun/pseuds/180714jaehyun
Summary: Johnny's friends encourage him to sleep with Jaehyun as a dare. Johnny finds out that it's a lot easier said than done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> johnjae is AWESOME and unfortunately somewhat underrated on ao3 so i'm super excited to be contributing to the tag!! this fic is 28k in its entirety and it's the longest fic i've written in years so pls be gentle. i'll be posting the rest of this in installments over the next few days so bear with me
> 
> shoutout to [dia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleonhart/pseuds/Cleonhart) for proofreading this and being v supportive and helpful throughout the writing process!!! give her works a read; she's a great writer!!
> 
> also sincerest apologies for making mark look like an idiot in this fic. i love u mark i promise

**< < week 0 >>**

The first time Johnny meets Jaehyun, they’re both drunk in the dorm lounge, and they don’t really get an opportunity to have a proper introduction. Someone had initiated a very anticlimactic game of truth-or-dare an hour ago and people have been steadily streaming out until only six inebriated people remain.

“You,” Taeyong says, pointing weakly at Jaehyun. “Jinyoung.”

“Jaehyun,” Jaehyun corrects softly, but he’s too drunk to be offended. Or maybe he’s just not the type of person to take offense very easily.

“Yeah. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Jaehyun says, and everyone groans. It’s the fifth truth in a row. Yuta falls dramatically to the floor in a drunken heap to express his disappointment.

“Why are you so boring?” Taeyong complains, his words slurring together.

Jaehyun shamelessly giggles. “Is that the question you want me to answer?”

Taeyong rolls his eyes and takes a moment to think. “If you could do seven minutes in heaven with anyone in this room, who would you pick?”

Jaehyun giggles again, eyeing the five of them carefully. Jaehyun’s kind of cute— or, he’s kind of cute when he’s drunk, as far as Johnny knows. His face is flushed a bright shade of red from the alcohol and his brown hair is messy and he’s overwhelmingly energized because he seems to suddenly think that everything is hilarious. It’s strangely endearing.

When Jaehyun makes eye contact with Johnny, his smile fades instantly and his jaw hangs open a little bit.

“You,” Jaehyun says without hesitation. Everyone directs their gazes to Johnny in an awe-struck silence.

“Ooh, Johnny!” Yuta cheers at a loud volume, poking Johnny rather harshly in the ribcage.

For Johnny, this is quite a confidence booster. He’s probably in one of his lowest states right now with alcohol buzzing through his bloodstream and his cognitive abilities being more than mildly impaired, yet somehow this total stranger still finds him appealing. He can’t wait to boast about this. It’s almost résumé-worthy. _Still sexy even after downing four shots and a beer_. Impressive.

“What would you do with Johnny?” Taeyong promptly asks Jaehyun.

Jaehyun bursts out laughing and he looks away from Johnny, thoughts clearly churning in his head. “You only get to ask me one question,” Jaehyun says to Taeyong, holding a single finger up in the air. “I’m not answering that because that would be _two_ questions,” he finishes, now holding up two fingers. It’s delightful to see that his basic counting skills are up to snuff. “Not sex, though,” Jaehyun jumps in quickly. So much for not answering the question. “I would… we would just talk, probably. For seven minutes. I’m, like, a virgin.” Jaehyun laughs some more, and then attractively hiccups.

They move on quickly after Jaehyun’s finished oversharing. Jaehyun decides to leave a few minutes after that and he confidently walks into the wall next to the door on his grand exit. Donghyuck, who is slightly soberer, gets up and leaves the room with him, promising to make sure that Jaehyun doesn’t end up majorly injuring himself.

And then it’s Johnny’s turn.

“Dare,” Johnny declares boldly, earning a wave of gasps from his drunken floor mates.

“Finally!” Mark rejoices, sitting up from his slumping position now that his interest has been piqued.

“Are you sure?” Yuta asks Johnny. “I won’t let you off easy,” he warns.

The alcohol in Johnny’s body confidently says, “I’m sure. Give me your worst.”

Yuta smiles. “Ask Jaehyun out on a date.”

“Okay,” Johnny says slowly. “That’s it? Just take him on a date?”

“No, no, that’s way too easy,” Mark objects, shaking his head. “Jaehyun wants to do seven minutes in heaven with him, and you just want Johnny to take him on a date?”

“ _Platonic_ seven minutes in heaven,” Johnny corrects.

“Sleep with Jaehyun,” Taeyong suggests nonchalantly.

Mark and Yuta howl with laughter.

“You guys have to be kidding,” Johnny protests with a weak laugh. “He’s a virgin! You know that’s too far.”

Yuta shrugs. “Then you lose.”

“Fine,” Johnny decides, throwing his hands up in mock defeat. “I lose. Forgive me for having a moral compass.”

“Come on, Johnny!” Mark says. “Live a little! Jaehyun likes you!” Johnny’s fairly certain that this is the exact kind of peer pressure that his parents warned him about as a child.

“But— how does— I can’t just… sleep with him. I don’t _want_ to sleep with him.”

“He wants to sleep with you,” Taeyong throws in. “Maybe. Most likely.”

“Plus you’ll be getting laid,” Yuta points out. “Pretty good incentive, if you ask me.”

Johnny frowns. “If I wanted to get laid, I would just go on Tinder.”

“You’re so _boring_ ,” Taeyong complains dramatically. “Truth-or-dare isn’t fun when you just give up.”

“Can you come up with another dare?”

“Nope,” Yuta says.

“You totally have the potential to do it, too,” Mark tells Johnny. “Tall, handsome, charming.”

“I’ll give you fifty dollars,” Yuta says, “if you can do it by the end of the term.”

Johnny’s eyes widen.

“I’ll throw in another fifty,” Mark promises, and Taeyong agrees too, putting a grand total of one hundred and fifty dollars up for grabs.

Johnny’s eyes widen even more, outraged that these people would go to such great lengths for a simple game. 

“Are you guys serious?” Johnny asks. “So it’s like a bet, then?”

The three of them nod in unison, and Johnny takes a brief moment to think. Using a random student for money is undoubtedly a terrible thing to do, especially when it involves sex. Johnny doesn’t want to infringe upon Jaehyun’s morals, assuming that Jaehyun has morals. But from a financial standpoint, Johnny could certainly use the cash. Plus, Jaehyun’s attractive. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to try, right?

“Deal,” Johnny says, earning jubilant cheers from the three of them.

 

**< < week 1 >>**

Johnny makes no effort to talk to Jaehyun for the first week of classes. Partially because he never sees him and partially because, after he’s sobered up, he realizes even more that it’s truly an _awful_ dare. If, by some miracle, he manages to get away with it, then there will definitely be a seat reserved for him in hell.

His friends don’t mention the dare during the week, so Johnny briefly hopes that maybe they’ve forgotten about it. But then Yuta shoots them a text in their four-person group chat on Saturday, asking for a status update, and Johnny has to begrudgingly tell everyone that no progress has been made.

The next day, Johnny bumps into Jaehyun while walking into the elevator. _Literally_ bumps into Jaehyun. To make matters worse, Jaehyun had been holding a warm bowl of some sort of vegetable soup. The front of Jaehyun’s shirt is now dripping in soup, and the other girl in the elevator is doing a poor job of concealing her laughter.

Johnny shoots out a scrambled string of apologies and desperately tries to think of how he could use this situation to his advantage.

“Let’s go to the bathroom, I’ll help you clean that up,” Johnny tells Jaehyun. “And I’ll buy you a new bowl of soup later, I promise.”

Jaehyun – poor, awkward Jaehyun – seems to be too flabbergasted to form coherent sentences, so he just makes a panicked noise. Johnny takes it as an affirmative response and he heads off to the restroom with Jaehyun in tow.

Once they’re in front of the sinks, Johnny realizes that he’s never had to clean up spilled soup before. Or, at least, not without the assistance of one of his parents. Being an adult is so hard. He fumbles around for paper towels, soaks them in water, and awkwardly begins wiping at Jaehyun’s shirt. Jaehyun sends him a confused expression.

Realizing this is his chance to have a proper introduction, Johnny breaks the silence.

“So, remind me of your name again?” Johnny says.

“Jaehyun.”

“Ah, Jaehyun, of course. I’m Johnny.” Jaehyun doesn’t say anything and Johnny isn’t sure if this is because he’s pissed or because he already knew that, so Johnny decides to apologize some more. “I’m so sorry. Really.”

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun says quietly. Johnny’s wiped off all of the soup by now, but it’s clear that the stains won’t be coming off anytime soon.

“At least your shirt smells delicious,” Johnny quips. Jaehyun’s lack of a response is a pretty strong indication that he doesn’t find Johnny’s joke funny. “Look, let’s go back down to the dining hall and I’ll pay for another bowl of whatever soup this was.”

Jaehyun doesn’t reply for a few painful seconds, and then he mumbles, “I think I’m just gonna go back to my room. I can’t go back down there. My shirt’s all wet now.”

“Fair enough. How about I get a bowl and I bring it back up for you?”

Seeming unimpressed by the offer, Jaehyun says, “No, it’s okay. I wouldn’t want you to end up spilling it on someone else as well.”

The words cut pretty deeply, and Johnny’s mouth falls open in shock. Jaehyun doesn’t seem to catch this reaction, though, because he’s already turned around and left the bathroom.

A toilet flushes and Donghyuck joins Johnny at the sinks.

“Yikes,” Donghyuck comments while he washes his hands.

“I don’t— what did I do wrong?” Johnny asks.

“You spilled soup on him, I guess.”

~

 **_yuta_ ** _(6:48 p.m.)_

_any updates on Mission: Get Johnny to Sleep with Jaehyun?_

**_johnny_ ** _(6:49 p.m.)_

_u literally just asked me this yesterday_

**_yuta_ ** _(6:50 p.m.)_

_and a lot can happen in 24 hours_

**_johnny_ ** _(6:51 p.m.)_

_i ran into jaehyun and spilled vegetable soup on his shirt an hour ago and i think he wants me dead now_

**_mark_ ** _(6:51 p.m.)_

_FSDKGKDFJSDLFSDLKDGKGJGJH_

**_johnny_ ** _(6:52 p.m.)_

_i'm glad that my misfortune brings you happiness_

 

**< < week 2 >>**

Classes aren’t too awful. Granted, it’s only the second week of the term, but Johnny finds the homework to be somewhat doable with the powerful assistance of Quizlet. He also hasn’t gotten drunk since the truth-or-dare game in the lounge, so he thinks that’s a notable achievement.

His RA tells him during their one-on-one that he should get involved in clubs if he has enough free time; Johnny initially dismisses the suggestion out of sheer laziness, but then his RA reminds him that it looks good on a résumé, and Johnny immediately begins doing research once he’s back in his room.

After half an hour, he’s narrowed down his list to a dance club, a music club, and a media club. Not entirely sure what he’s doing, Johnny decides to just apply for all three of them. Then he waits.

A few days later, Johnny gets a response from the music club telling him that the club meets in some obscure building on the edge of campus, for three hours every Wednesday. _Three_ hours, in _one_ night. Without a second thought, Johnny sends that email to the trash.

The next day, Johnny receives a message from the dance club. It’s just as disappointing, telling him that try-outs for this term have already passed and he’ll have to wait until next term if he wants to sign up. Johnny didn’t expect the process of joining clubs to be this tedious.

The following day, there’s an email from the media club. It’s surprisingly not disappointing. The president of the club says that it’s a little late to be recruiting students, but they’ll give Johnny a chance if he can make it to the media studies building this Friday.

Johnny feels like a stereotypical awkward freshman when he joins the media club’s meeting on Friday and he’s the only one in the room of fifteen people who is sitting alone. The president of the club walks over to him before the meeting and introduces himself as Ten. He’s very welcoming and very smiley and very short. Charismatic, too. He tells Johnny to just stick through the meeting to see what it’s like and they can talk afterwards about openings they have in their programming schedules.

To put it bluntly, the meeting is confusing. They spend most of the hour talking about scheduling issues and content for various programs that Johnny feels like he should know about. The pitfall is that he doesn’t know about them and he finds himself zoning out for a lot of the discussion. He had no idea that a campus radio station even existed until someone mentions that they need another DJ for the 11 p.m. broadcast.

“Johnny,” Ten suddenly says, causing everyone to gawk at the new kid. Johnny blinks, trying to ignore their unsettling stares, and Ten continues. “Would you be willing to fill the shift for next week until we can get someone else? It’s pretty easy, just Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You just have to read off of a script for an hour and you’ll have another member there to help you out.”

Johnny has never presented on the radio before, nor does he listen to public radio. 11 o’clock is also very late at night. It means he won’t get back to his dorm until after midnight, and that’s a very troubling concept. Really, it’s a bad idea on all fronts.

But Ten looks so hopeful. And spontaneity is good, right?

“Yeah, I’ll give it a try.”

“Great!” Ten says.

After the meeting, Ten pulls Johnny off to the side and praises him for agreeing to fill in for the time slot, and Johnny just nods and spits out short, agreeing responses because he doesn’t know what else to do. Ten dismisses him with another thank-you-you’re-such-a-lifesaver and then Johnny walks back to his dorm, silently reflecting on the poor decision he’s just made.

 

**< < week 3 >>**

When Monday rolls around, Johnny leaves his dorm at 10:40 so he can make it to the station before 11. It’s cold and dark and drizzly and Johnny clutches his phone throughout the whole walk, staring down at the instructions that Ten’s emailed to him until they become permanently ingrained into his memory. Ten’s directions are poor. He’d described the radio station as being located on the second floor of the student union, but it’s a pretty vague explanation and Johnny spends an embarrassing amount of time wandering around the second floor of the building in confusion.

Johnny finally finds the tiny little station tucked away in the south corner of the student union with a blue neon sign above the entrance. Relief washes over him and he pushes open the door cautiously.

That relief that had washed over Johnny just a few seconds ago? It’s gone – replaced with panic when Johnny makes eye contact with a very distressed-looking Jaehyun.

Johnny says, “Hi,” at the same time that Jaehyun breathes out, “Are you Winwin’s replacement?”

“Uh,” Johnny responds descriptively. “I don’t know a Winwin. I just know that I’m doing the shift from 11 to midnight.”

“Then yes, you are Winwin’s replacement,” Jaehyun states. His eyes glance up to a clock in the corner. “It’s 10:58.”

“Yeah. Got here just in time.”

Jaehyun looks like a stern mother and Johnny is his child who forgot to take the meat out of the fridge to thaw. “No. You were supposed to be here at 10:30 so we could rehearse.”

“ _Ohh_.” Johnny pauses. That makes sense. “I’m sorry. Ten didn’t tell me that.”

Jaehyun turns away from him and mutters, “I miss Winwin.”

The two female DJs who occupied the timeslot before them walk past on their way out of the radio station, wishing the two of them good luck with their broadcast. Then Jaehyun gestures at Johnny to head into the booth.

Johnny waits for Jaehyun to take a seat before he takes the other seat. Jaehyun suddenly hands him a stack of papers and highlights the lines that Johnny’s supposed to read. When the music stops playing, Jaehyun speaks into his microphone. And then he pauses, as the script indicates.

Johnny is so shocked and confused that it takes him a few seconds to collect his thoughts before he reads out his part, stilted and awkward and with an unscripted questioning lilt. Jaehyun shoots him a confused expression but they continue the script until it’s time to put on a song. Then Jaehyun turns off their microphones and denounces, “That was bad.”

“Thanks, you really know how to flatter me.”

Jaehyun uses the allotted three minutes to give Johnny the fastest rundown on the structure of the broadcast. It’s a lot of information being shot at Johnny in a short timeframe and he can feel his blood pressure rising.

It goes back and forth like that for the next hour; Johnny struggles to make it through the script and Jaehyun dispenses an overwhelming amount of information at Johnny during the song breaks. By the end of the broadcast, Johnny feels like his head is going to explode.

“Try to make it here at 10:30 on Wednesday,” Jaehyun says in a somewhat snappy tone while he pulls on a raincoat.

“If I don’t quit the media club before then,” Johnny mumbles.

Jaehyun just shrugs mindlessly. “Suit yourself.” He pushes open the door and walks out of the radio station without another word.

Johnny walks back to his dorm alone. Jaehyun must’ve taken a different route because Johnny doesn’t see him on the way back.

~

“I can’t do the dare,” Johnny tells his friends while Mark and Yuta are working on homework and Taeyong’s digging into a pint of ice cream. “There’s just— there’s no way it’s happening. He’s in the media club that I signed up for and I think he’s soulless.”

“Losing hope so soon?” Taeyong questions, stabbing his ice cream with his spoon.

“Jaehyun’s an asshole,” Johnny explains. “Like a genuine _asshole_. I don’t even want to be his _friend_ , much less his boyfriend.”

Yuta splutters on his water. “Jaehyun? An asshole?”

“To be fair, you did spill his vegetable soup all over him,” Mark points out. “I would never eat vegetable soup, but I probably wouldn’t be too friendly with someone if they spilled my vegetable soup on me. Hypothetically. If I ate vegetable soup.”

“Whatever. Point is he hates me,” Johnny finishes with a shrug. “It’s good news for you guys. You get to keep your money.”

“I don’t believe you,” Yuta challenges. “I talked to Jaehyun yesterday and he was pretty nice. He was, like, smiling and everything, like the human embodiment of sunshine.”

“You also didn’t spill soup on him,” Johnny says.

“Well, why did you do that, then?” Yuta fires back, much to Johnny’s annoyance.

“It’s a shame,” Taeyong cuts in, “because you and Jaehyun would actually be pretty cute together.”

“Ditto,” Mark agrees.

Johnny sighs out of irritation. “I’m pretty sure Jaehyun wishes I didn’t exist.”

“Doubt he would want to do seven minutes in heaven with you if he really despised you so much,” Yuta says.

“He was also very drunk,” Johnny states.

“So what does this mean?” Mark asks Johnny. “This is it? You’re giving up?”

“I’m giving up,” Johnny confirms.

“Hey,” Taeyong begins, lightly poking Johnny with the handle of his spoon. “You said he’s in your media club, right? So you’ll be seeing him pretty frequently. It’s in your best interest to at least befriend him if you’re gonna be around him a lot.”

“Ah, that’s a good point,” Johnny says. “So I should quit the media club, too.”

“Don’t be a quitter,” Mark whines. “Your attitude genuinely hurts me.”

“Even if Jaehyun really does hate you, _which I highly doubt_ ,” Taeyong emphasizes, “it’ll just be even more rewarding when you succeed.”

“What if we raise the stakes?” Yuta suggests. “Instead of fifty dollars, we each pitch in a hundred instead.”

Johnny’s eyes nearly pop out of his head in astonishment. “You guys are bluffing.”

“It’s only week three,” Yuta says. “You have plenty of time. This should be a piece of cake.”

“And we all believe in you,” Mark puts in. “Right?”

Yuta and Taeyong nod enthusiastically.

Johnny visualizes three hundred dollars in cash. It’s tempting.

“Fine,” Johnny gives in, “but just so we’re clear, I’m only doing this for the money.”

~

Johnny is determined to win over Jaehyun’s heart, and he’s confident that he can do it. Sure, Jaehyun’s kind of a tough cookie to crack, but it just adds to the fun of the challenge. Johnny’s just going to have to devise some more clever tactics.

Johnny shows up to the radio station at 10:25 on Wednesday, five whole minutes before Jaehyun told him to be there. Jaehyun looks shocked when Johnny walks in pompously.

“Hey, Jaehyun!” Johnny greets, slinging off his backpack and unzipping his raincoat. “I’m on time, right?”

Jaehyun hums, closing the novel that he’d been reading. “Surprisingly.”

Jaehyun is annoying. It’s a completely unnecessary answer and it digs under Johnny’s skin; a simple “yes” would’ve sufficed, but Johnny restrains himself from giving Jaehyun the reaction that he wants.

“How’s your day going?” Johnny asks.

“We should run over the script once,” Jaehyun replies, clearly and purposely evading the question. “We’re not technically supposed to follow the script word-for-word, and as you gain experience, we’ll be able to put in some more improvisation.”

“But I’m leaving after this week,” Johnny says.

Jaehyun blinks. “You’re what?”

He looks surprised by this. _Good_. Maybe Jaehyun’s already developed some kind of psychological attachment to Johnny. It would make things much easier.

“I’m leaving,” Johnny repeats smoothly. “Ten told me I’m just subbing in for a week and then after that, I’m out.”

“Did Ten say who’s replacing you? Is Winwin coming back?” Jaehyun looks suddenly excited at this news and Johnny’s hopefulness backfires on him.

“Uh… no,” Johnny says. “Glad to hear that you’ll be missing me,” he throws in sarcastically, eyeing Jaehyun for a response.

Jaehyun, as expected, ignores Johnny’s comment (he’s very good at doing that) and hands him a stack of papers. Johnny agitatedly takes the seat across from Jaehyun and they recite the script. Jaehyun stops Johnny every few lines to give him pointers – “Put in more enthusiasm; you possess the excitement of a box of tissues” – and Johnny thinks about better things he could be doing with his time. The list is endless.

For the most part, the broadcast runs smoothly. Jaehyun completely demoralizes Johnny’s improvisation skills once the show is over, but Johnny expects it by now.

When Jaehyun opens the door to leave the studio, Johnny shoots him a quick, “See ya on Friday!” and it stops Jaehyun in his tracks. He turns around and looks at Johnny, then he makes some kind of affirmative noise in response.

Johnny is thrilled! They’re definitely making progress. It’s gone from the silent treatment to vague, somewhat communicative sounds. He’ll take it.

The next day, Johnny spots Ten in the student union while he’s waiting in line for Starbucks. They make eye contact from a distance and then Ten seamlessly bounds over, flashing Johnny a blinding smile.

“How’s the broadcast going so far?” Ten asks. “I haven’t had the chance to listen yet.”

“It’s going great!” Johnny internally grimaces. “In fact, I was going to ask if I could become a permanent DJ.”

Ten’s jaw drops open. “That’s awesome! I’m glad you’re having fun!” He chews his lip nervously, clearly thinking. “I had a more experienced guy lined up for next week, but I’m sure I could fit him into another timeslot if you wanted to stay on board.”

The radio show aids significantly in the amount of time Johnny gets to spend with Jaehyun. He needs this. Fortunately, Ten seems to be more of a pushover than Johnny was expecting.

“It would be pretty cool if I could stay,” he tells Ten.

“I’ll definitely find a way to work this out. Hey, I have to get going to my philosophy lecture, but I’ll see you tomorrow at the meeting, okay?”

On Friday, upon entering the meeting room, Johnny spots Jaehyun seated towards the front and heads straight for him.

“Hey, Jaehyun,” Johnny says.

Jaehyun, who is looking down at his phone, gives Johnny a soft, “Hello.”

More progress! At this rate, Johnny will have completed the dare by the end of the night.

“Excited for the broadcast tonight?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun simply hums, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Ten begins leading the meeting a few seconds later and Johnny observes quietly. He still remains unsure about ninety percent of the broadcasts that the media club is in charge of hosting, so he’s kind of at a disadvantage in the discussion.

Jaehyun, on the other hand, participates so often that it almost becomes _annoying_. He has a plethora of creative suggestions and he seems to be a favored member of the group because his ideas are always met with a unanimous approval. Johnny quickly discovers that Jaehyun must be the golden child of the entire universe. No wonder Yuta was so affronted when Johnny called him an asshole; they’ve been comparing encounters with two completely different Jaehyuns.

The meeting is running along smoothly until Ten announces Johnny’s role as a permanent DJ. An awkward silence looms over the group and everyone blankly looks at Johnny.

“I was going to have Taeil take over for Johnny, but I’ve decided to give Taeil his own broadcast at 8 p.m.,” Ten explains. “This way Johnny can continue to gain experience and it’s fair for everyone.”

A few people nod and Jaehyun raises his hand.

“Yes, Jaehyun?” Ten calls.

“Would it be possible for me to switch to join Taeil’s broadcast?” he asks.

Johnny grits his teeth and Ten looks completely floored by the request. In that moment, Johnny decides that he _hates_ Jaehyun. He no longer feels guilty about trying to manipulate Jaehyun into sleeping with him just for some extra cash. At this point, he’s more than determined to break Jaehyun’s heart because it’s what he deserves.

“Uhm…” Ten begins, “I don’t think Johnny has enough experience to be running his own broadcast quite yet, and I’m sure he would agree with me. It would probably be best if you stayed with him.”

Jaehyun looks like he wants to say more but he doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he just nods forcefully.

Johnny leaves the room fairly quickly once the meeting is over, lurks outside the doorway, and waits for Jaehyun to leave the room.

“Yo,” Johnny says when Jaehyun passes by him. Jaehyun jumps a little out of surprise. “Should we talk about what you said?”

Jaehyun shakes his head and points to nowhere in particular. “I was gonna go get dinner before the show.” Pause. “It was nothing personal,” he insists, and Johnny can sense the next lie coming from a mile away. “Taeil’s kind of been my role model, so I thought it would be cool to be able to work with him.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Johnny says. “Go get your dinner. I’ll see you later tonight.”

The broadcast is awful and painful. Johnny is tired of Jaehyun’s childishly grouchy demeanor towards him and he doesn’t even bother with the fake enthusiasm. Johnny didn’t greet Jaehyun when he entered the studio and he doesn’t say goodbye to him when Jaehyun leaves. He just doesn’t have the energy for it tonight.

When Johnny returns to his room, he sees that he has a friend request on Facebook from Ten. He accepts it and receives a message from him a few minutes later.

 **_Ten Chittaphon_ ** _(12:28 a.m.)_

_hey!! i noticed that you left the meeting kinda quickly earlier and i just wanted to say i'm sorry about that awkward thing that happened. idk why jaehyun said that but i’m sure he didn’t mean to offend you so try not to dwell on it too much!!_

Johnny rereads the message a few times, appreciative of Ten’s concern but also puzzled as to why Ten would feel the need to apologize on behalf of Jaehyun.

 

 **_Johnny Seo_ ** _(12:30 a.m.)_

_hi! thanks for this message! i talked to jaehyun after the meeting and we agreed that it was all just a misunderstanding so don’t worry about it._

Nothing close to an agreement had happened between him and Jaehyun, but Johnny sends the message to hopefully put Ten’s mind at ease.

Ten sounds understanding in his reply and changes the topic. The two of them exchange messages for another half hour, mostly just getting to know each other, and Johnny finds it comforting to connect with someone so easily. Johnny is grateful for Ten. Maybe freshman year won’t be so bad, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**< < week 4 >>**

“How was your weekend?” Jaehyun asks when Johnny enters the studio on Monday.

Johnny looks at Jaehyun in a dazed silence for a few seconds, struggling to process what’s happening. Is Jaehyun asking… him? Johnny looks behind him. There’s no one there; just a door.

“It was… okay,” he finally replies, cautiously setting his backpack down in its usual corner. “Why?”

Jaehyun merely shrugs. And then he _smiles_ at him.

Johnny is astounded. He must be hallucinating. Jaehyun’s being nice to him? Why?

They sit down to rehearse tonight’s script. Instead of Jaehyun stopping Johnny every few seconds to criticize his amateurism, they get through the script in one run-through and Jaehyun _praises_ him at the end, telling Johnny that he’s improved a lot since last week. He even flashes him another dimply smile. Johnny feels like he should be excited, but he’s drowning in confusion more than anything.

Jaehyun’s even weirder once the show starts; he throws in more light-hearted, unscripted comments than he usually does, acting like a complete 180 from the Jaehyun that Johnny knew last week.

Jaehyun compliments Johnny again after the broadcast has ended and Johnny finally unleashes his skepticism.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Johnny asks, dramatically setting his script down in exasperation. “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?”

Jaehyun freezes halfway through the process of putting on his jacket, staring at Johnny like he’s just been caught doing something illegal. “I can be ruder, if you want.”

“No— no, I just. I’m confused, I guess.”

“I’m just letting you know that you’ve been doing well,” Jaehyun says innocently. He has to be the most confusing person Johnny has ever met.

Unsure how to react, Johnny settles for a slow and confused, “Thank you.”

Johnny takes his time packing up, like he usually does. It’s five minutes after their broadcast has ended, the next DJ has already taken over, and normally Jaehyun has disappeared by now, but instead he lingers by the doorway, staring down at his phone. Johnny finally shuffles around him to get to the door, and Jaehyun follows him out of the station like a lost puppy.

“Where are you headed?” Jaehyun asks, walking down the hallway with Johnny.

“It’s midnight,” Johnny states pointedly. “So… back to my dorm. Robinson Hall.”

Jaehyun nods as if that’s the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. “I’m going there too,” he says. Well, duh. They live on the same floor. Of course they’re going to the same building. Johnny decides not to point this out.

“You know,” Jaehyun begins, “you never told me what you were studying.”

“You never asked,” Johnny says automatically.

Jaehyun laughs. Johnny has no idea how his snappy reply could warrant that kind of response from Jaehyun, of all people, who has shown little to no empathy for Johnny in the few weeks that they’ve known each other, but he doesn’t question it.

“I’m majoring in environmental science,” Jaehyun tells him.

“Yeah, you seemed pretty passionate about climate change at the floor meeting a few weeks ago,” Johnny comments. “Which is totally cool. I get it. We’re destroying our planet and all that stuff.” Johnny freezes, and then his eyes widen. “I didn’t mean that to sound sarcastic, by the way. I’m a huge fan of renewable energy. I’m studying bioengineering, hoping to become a vet in the not-too-distant future.”

“A vet!” Jaehyun repeats.

“A vet,” Johnny confirms.

They fall into a light conversation on the walk back to their dorm, talking about the environment and animals and which classes they’re taking and how they ended up in the media club. From Johnny’s standpoint, it’s not a comfortable conversation by any standards— it’s just a shallow, amiable attempt at breaking the ice between them. They have a long way to go before they can be friends.

The two of them separate once the elevator has opened up on their floor, and they bid each other goodnight before heading off in opposite directions down the hallway. Mark is standing outside the door to his own room when this happens, and he shoots Johnny a very conspicuous thumbs up, which Johnny ignores.

~

Johnny quickly learns that midterms are the bane of his existence. He misses high school sometimes, can’t even begin to understand why someone would think it’s a good idea for all professors to schedule their exams during the same weeks.

He shows up to the radio station on Wednesday on the brink of exhaustion. He’d been studying nonstop for the past six hours, still doubtful of his chemistry knowledge. He briefly considers calling in sick and just skipping for one night until he remembers that he has no way of contacting Jaehyun and he knows that not showing up wouldn’t fare well. It would probably be detrimental to the substantial progress they made on Monday, too.

So Johnny musters up the energy to go to the station, showing up with tousled hair and puffy bags under his eyes.

“You look terrible,” Jaehyun notices. Jaehyun smacks a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” Jaehyun continues. “I didn’t— I’m really sorry— I don’t—”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Jaehyun takes a breath. “What I meant is that you look tired.”

“Ding ding ding,” Johnny replies, shooting finger guns at him. “That’s because I am.” Johnny grabs his script from the cubby and glares down at the letters. “This is a lot of words,” he observes.

“It’s the same length as all of our usual scripts,” Jaehyun promises. “Are you sure you’ll be able to make it through the show without falling asleep?”

Jaehyun’s showing concern for him— this is definitely new.

“To be entirely honest, I’m not sure of anything. I’ve spent six hours today practicing balancing equations and I’m still doubtful. But we’ll see how this goes.” Johnny takes a seat. “Practice run. Go.”

Johnny barely makes it through their practice run. It is key to note that he does make it, though, so he has reasonable evidence to prove that he’ll be able to make it through the live broadcast as well.

Johnny does not make it through the live broadcast. He’s not sure when he fell asleep, he just knows that he bolts awake when he feels a gentle poke on his shoulder.

“Had a good nap?” Jaehyun asks, paper-clipping his copy of the script.

“Oh my god,” Johnny breathes, heart racing. He anxiously fumbles for his script, crumpling it up a bit in the process. “How long have I been out?”

Jaehyun glances up at the clock in the corner of the room. Johnny follows his gaze.

 _Oh no_. 11:59. The show’s over. Jaehyun’s never gonna let him off the hook for this.

“Oh my god,” Johnny repeats, slightly louder. “I’m— I’m so sorry! It won’t happen again, I swear!”

“It’s fine,” is all Jaehyun says.

Johnny blinks. “It’s fine?”

Jaehyun nods nonchalantly. “I just modified the script a little bit so it would work with one DJ and I think it went okay. It’s not the first time I’ve had to do a show alone.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“First off, I tried. You were, like, _really_ out of it,” Jaehyun explains. “Plus you clearly needed the sleep so I figured I would just let it slide.”

“Oh, that’s— that’s really kind of you,” Johnny says, slightly stunned. “Thanks.”

“If you’re feeling tired in the future, you can just let me know you won’t be able to make it and I can do the show by myself,” Jaehyun tells him with a shrug. “I don’t mind.”

What the fuck? Jaehyun’s an angel? Since when?

“I have no way of contacting you,” Johnny points out.

Jaehyun hums and fishes his phone out of his back pocket. He unlocks it and silently hands it to Johnny for him to enter his contact info.

They walk back to their dorm together. The conversation is less forced this time, but still only skimming the surface level of a friendship. Jaehyun’s kind of cute when he laughs and Johnny tries not to think about it too much. They split up once again when they get off the elevator, telling each other goodnight before heading back to their rooms.

Johnny gets a text from Jaehyun not even an entire minute after they’ve separated. It’s just a simple _this is Jaehyun_ but it’s progress nonetheless.

~

“He’s the most dissonant person I’ve ever come across,” Johnny tells Mark, who appears to have directed half of his attention to a game he’s playing on his phone and the other half of his attention to listening to Johnny’s ramblings.

“So Jaehyun no longer hates you,” Mark states, shaking his head at his phone screen when he fails to complete the level for the twelfth attempt in a row. “Have you asked him out yet?”

“Absolutely not,” Johnny replies instantly.

“I see,” Mark says. “And why’s that?”

“Because. That would be, uh… kinda weird, right? Like, it would be moving way too quickly and Jaehyun would definitely suspect something odd.”

“Everything in college goes too quickly,” Taeyong pipes in from where he’s lying face-down on the couch; Johnny had forgotten about his presence. The poor guy’s been exhausted the entire week, completely drained from midterms.

“True,” Johnny says. “But I think I’m gonna have to procrastinate this one.”

“The dare has time constraints,” Mark reminds him. “Six more weeks left in the term. Seven if you—” Mark pauses, interrupting himself with a swear word as he glares down at his phone screen. Another attempt failed. “Seven if you count finals week,” he resumes. “That’s only a little over a month, if my math skills are in check.”

“Your math skills are never in check,” Taeyong mumbles. “That’s why you had to retake algebra twice in high school.”

“Love you too, Taeyong.”

Taeyong groans into a pillow.

“And you had to retake history how many times?” Mark challenges.

Johnny nods slowly while his friends bicker. Mark actually brings up a very good point. The quarter system is indeed proving to be a major obstacle.

“Hello!” Yuta says, pushing open the door to the lounge with several plastic bags in hand. “I am here and I have a lot of food.”

Mark perks up and Taeyong rolls onto his side so he can confirm that Yuta indeed has food.

“Great timing,” Mark says, reaching his hands out for one of the bags. “Johnny was just telling us about the terrific progress he’s made for Mission: Get Johnny to Sleep with Jaehyun.”

Yuta’s mouth forms an ‘O’ shape. “You’ve actually made progress?”

“Don’t pretend to be so shocked,” Johnny complains, peering into one of the bags that Yuta’s set down on the round table. “I told you I can do this. He doesn’t hate me anymore. Should be a piece of cake from here.”

Yuta pats him on the shoulder. “Look at you, Johnny. He doesn’t hate you. I’m so proud. You’ve come so far.”

“Ask him out,” Mark demands, chaotically unwrapping one of the sandwiches. Yuta shrieks a little and chastises Mark for making a mess.

Johnny frowns down at the unwrapped sandwich that he’s claimed. “You guys really think I should ask him out so soon?”

Yuta whips the sandwich out of Johnny’s grip. “Ask him out or you don’t get the sandwich.”

Johnny steals the sandwich back. “So now you’re threatening me?”

Yuta huffs and takes the sandwich again. “Simply _advising_ you.”

“Fine,” Johnny decides. “I’ll ask him out tomorrow. Promise.” Yuta returns the sandwich.

~

Asking someone out on a date is a lot easier said than done. Johnny rehearses it in his head before the radio show, trying to construct ambiguous phrasings that might not necessarily imply a date and would therefore decrease his chances of getting rejected.

To say that Johnny is nervous would be a massive understatement. He’s always had a hard time asking people out on dates; his palms get clammy and the words get stuck in his throat and he ends up looking like a giant loser. But he figures he has nothing to worry about this time since he doesn’t actually have feelings for Jaehyun. He _figures_. He may have miscalculated the situation.

When Johnny enters the studio, Jaehyun is reading a book once again. He sends Johnny a quiet “hey” and then continues reading for another minute, presumably until he’s reached the end of the page.

“Let’s rehearse,” Jaehyun says before Johnny can figure out a way to effortlessly slip something as huge as asking someone out on a date into a casual conversation.

Johnny decides he’ll just do it when the show’s over. It’ll be fine.

But Johnny is so preoccupied by it that he can’t seem to focus on the script and he stutters over his lines as if he’s suddenly forgotten how to read. Jaehyun looks concerned but he doesn’t ask until the end of their rehearsal, and Johnny lies and says that he’s just a little tired today.

The actual broadcast doesn’t go much better than that; Johnny frequently loses his train of thought and Jaehyun has to nudge him several times to get him to read his lines.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jaehyun asks towards the end of the broadcast during a commercial break. “Are you tired or sick or something?”

“Do you want to get dinner tomorrow?” Johnny blurts out smoothly.

Jaehyun’s eyes widen and Johnny notices the faintest smile tugging at his lips. A smile has to be a good sign, right? But the commercial break decides to end at that moment, and Jaehyun begins reciting his half of the script into the microphone before Johnny can get an answer from him. Delightful.

When the show ends, Johnny says nothing, and neither does Jaehyun. They put their scripts away and pack up in silence. Johnny briefly wonders if he should ask again, in case Jaehyun’s forgotten about the question in the last few minutes, but he decides against it. If Jaehyun really wanted to go on a date with him, he probably wouldn’t forget about a question like that.

Jaehyun starts up a stale conversation about midterms on the walk back to their dorm, complaining about how one of his professors completely scammed his entire class. Johnny just nods and listens.

When they’ve reached their floor and they’re about to split up like they always do, Jaehyun says, “By the way, I can’t. In response to your question from earlier.”

“Oh,” Johnny says. He sheepishly nods, looking down at his own feet. “It’s cool.”

“Have a good night,” Jaehyun tells him with a tiny smile before departing.

“You too,” Johnny says somewhat sadly.

~

 **_johnny_ ** _(12:20 a.m.)_

_guess who just got hardcore rejected_

**_mark_ ** _(12:21 a.m.)_

_not u????_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:21 a.m.)_

_guess again buddy_

**_taeyong_ ** _(12:22 a.m.)_

_could it be_

_mr. johnny seo himself????_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:22 a.m.)_

_bingo!!!_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:23 a.m.)_

_i think jaehyun’s just playing hard to get_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:23 a.m.)_

_or he just doesn’t wanna date me_

_that's also a plausible hypothesis_

**_mark_ ** _(12:24 a.m.)_

_who wouldn’t wanna date u tho???_

_wait_

_the answer is me lol_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:24 a.m.)_

_thx mark_

_you really know how to flatter a man_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:25 a.m.)_

_it’s ok johnny you still have plenty of opportunities_

_just ask him again on monday_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:26 a.m.)_

_jesus yuta i'm not THAT annoying_

_i can’t just keep asking him over and over_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:26 a.m.)_

_all i'm saying is maybe jaehyun will be in a better mood on monday_

_also you kinda are that annoying…_

_love u tho i promise_

**< < week 5 >>**

“What are you doing after this broadcast?” Johnny asks Jaehyun, only realizing how stupid the question is after the words have left his mouth and are painfully lingering in the air between them. He suddenly regrets taking Yuta’s advice.

“Going to bed,” Jaehyun says bluntly. Johnny nods, not really sure where to go from here. “Why do you ask?” Jaehyun questions, glancing up from his phone.

“I don’t know. It was kind of a dumb question since our broadcast ends at midnight.”

Jaehyun laughs quietly and shrugs. He resumes looking down at his phone, waiting for the song to end.

Johnny taps his pencil rhythmically against the edge of the desk, deep in thought. He decides that he might as well ask so he can at least say that he tried.

“Would you by any chance want to hang out after the show’s over?”

Jaehyun looks at him. “I have a 9 a.m. class tomorrow so I should probably go to bed right after this.”

Johnny kind of figured that would be his response. He makes a mental note to try again on Wednesday at a more realistic time.

~

Wednesday is equally as unsuccessful as Monday.

 **_johnny_ ** _(6:13 p.m.)_

_hey!!! do u wanna grab a bite to eat before our broadcast?_

It takes Jaehyun almost three hours to respond.

 

 **_jaehyun_ ** _(9:04 p.m.)_

_oh sorry i just saw this now i was studying_

_and i already ate :/_

~

Johnny’s been spacing in and out of this week’s meeting ever since Ten started talking. You see, Ten goes very fast in their meetings, which is how he manages to cover a multitude of topics in an hour. It’s efficient, but his quick pace can be overwhelming, especially on a Friday evening when everyone’s mind is set on the weekend. So Johnny copes by falling asleep. He wakes up when he feels a pointy elbow jab into his ribs and he sends a scowls at the perpetrator.

“I was napping,” Johnny complains quietly.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun says, but it’s clear that he doesn’t mean it.

“Okay, last topic!” Ten announces. A few people – Johnny included – seem to perk up in interest now that the end of the meeting has drawn near. “The media convention’s in three weeks. For those of you who are new to the club, every fall the university covers all expenses for us to drive to the convention center and stay in a hotel for one night. It’s a really great event and I would definitely recommend going if it fits in your schedule. We don’t need to start finalizing anything until next week, but I just wanted to put it on your radars. Any questions?”

Johnny has a lot of questions. Too many questions. He doesn’t know where to start. Ten decides to end the meeting when no one raises their hand, and Johnny decides that he’ll just go up and ask Ten privately. But nothing ever seems to go according to plan in Johnny’s life.

“Hey,” Jaehyun says, interrupting Johnny’s plans and appearing very anxious. “Do you wanna go get something to eat before our show?”

Johnny can’t believe this. He feels like he’s won the lottery. He freezes like a statue for a few seconds and, deciding that he can’t just let this opportunity slip away from him, he finally nods quickly.

They decide to go to the Panda Express in the student union for dinner, mostly out of convenience. Johnny eats Panda Express roughly three times a week and he’s fairly certain that he had it earlier today for lunch, but he doesn’t complain. It’s what Jaehyun wants, and Johnny’s primary goal at the moment is to make Jaehyun happy.

Jaehyun spends a good portion of their meal apologizing about not checking his texts yesterday, claiming that he’d devoted several hours to studying for an economics exam, which is somewhat reassuring. Maybe Jaehyun isn’t a complete douchebag after all.

(Jaehyun also spends a decent amount of time talking about how much he adores pandas, since they’re eating Panda Express. Johnny hasn’t decided whether he finds it endearing or not.)

Johnny reaches the conclusion halfway through dinner that Jaehyun is actually a wonderful person, and a feeling of guilt begins to pool in his stomach.

It starts like this:

“Do you volunteer at all?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny shouldn’t feel threatened by that question, but he does. “Uh… not too often.” Johnny had donated to canned food drives in high school; that has to count for something, right?

“I love volunteering,” Jaehyun gushes. “I love helping people and making the world a better place. I’ve been volunteering at one of the local animal shelters every weekend.”

“Oh— uh— oh,” Johnny stutters out. Is he a shitty human being if he feels belittled by Jaehyun’s admirable selflessness? Images of Jaehyun cuddling helpless puppies pop into his head. “Well, I don’t have a car with me so I can’t really, like, leave campus,” Johnny justifies.

“Oh, me neither! I looked up the times for the bus routes so I’ve been using public transportation.”

Great. Jaehyun is selfless _and_ brave — everything that Johnny is not. In all honesty, Johnny is terrified of the bus system. He has nightmares about getting stranded in the middle of Los Angeles. When you go to school in a city with a population of almost four million people, you can’t afford to not know what you’re doing, and since Johnny doesn’t have an upperclassman to guide him, he’d just decided at the beginning of the term that he’s content with never leaving campus.

Jaehyun then begins talking about a sick litter of kittens that he nursed back to health and Johnny finds himself feeling infuriated. Jaehyun goes on and on about his experiences at the shelter, as if he’s better than Johnny or something, and Johnny does a pretty good job of holding back from making snarky comments until he can’t stop himself anymore.

“And this poor dog that came in last week was just completely terrified of humans because he’d been abused so much—”

“Wow,” Johnny interrupts. “We get it. You’re so much better than everyone else because you take care of sick animals on the weekends while most of us just cry over math homework. Can we move on?”

Jaehyun blinks and drops his plastic fork, looking suddenly afraid, and Johnny realizes he has most certainly fucked this up.

“I’m just teasing,” Johnny throws in quickly with a laugh. “Don’t look so scared, Mr. Perfect.”

But Jaehyun doesn’t look any less afraid than he did nine seconds ago. The silence between them is painful and awkward and Johnny doesn’t know what else to say because he fears that if he opens his mouth again, he’ll somehow manage to dig himself into a deeper hole.

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun finally mumbles, averting his gaze. “I knew you wanted to become a vet so I was gonna ask if you wanted to come with me to the shelter tomorrow.” Jaehyun grabs his empty bowl and scoots his chair out. “I’m heading back to the dorm before the broadcast. I’ll see you later.”

Jaehyun kind of looks like he’s about to cry before he leaves. Johnny thinks he’s just being dramatic.

When Jaehyun shows up for their radio broadcast, he avoids eye contact as much as he can. He reads the script verbatim and is wordlessly out of the studio less than thirty seconds after their show is finished. Johnny concludes that Jaehyun is definitely being dramatic.

~

The more Johnny thinks about it, the more he understands why he pissed off Jaehyun. He knows that he should apologize; maybe just shoot him a quick text, at least. But he doesn’t. He decides to just try to forget about it instead.

Johnny’s in the middle of swearing at his calculus homework on Saturday when his phone lights up with a Facebook notification.

 **_Ten Chittaphon_ ** _(2:18 p.m.)_

_yo are you doing anything tonight?_

**_Johnny Seo_ ** _(2:20 p.m.)_

_nothing too exciting, probably just gonna catch up on homework_

_why?_

**_Ten Chittaphon_ ** _(2:21 p.m.)_

_my friend doyoung’s having a party tonight and i was wondering if you would want to come!_

_a lot of other students from the media club are gonna be there so it would be a great way to match some names with faces_

That’s how Johnny ends up standing apprehensively at the edge of campus, shivering under a streetlamp while he waits for Ten to join him on a Saturday evening in the middle of his first term of college.

He thinks about how Jaehyun is probably angelically caring for neglected animals a few miles away right now. Meanwhile, Johnny plans on getting absolutely plastered. To each their own.

“Johnny!” Ten greets, overflowing with cheerfulness as always. “So glad you could make it! The house is just a few blocks this direction.”

Johnny follows Ten into the house and time instantly seems to slow down. Ten introduces him to a group of other media club students that Johnny recognizes from the meetings but hadn’t yet had the opportunity to personally meet. The party had only started a few minutes ago so everyone is moderately sober and the scene is relatively calm, but it escalates quickly.

Specifically, Ten challenges Johnny to a game of beer pong and Johnny happens to be pretty terrible at it. Johnny finds himself getting sucked into various other drinking games as well, so he ends up consuming a lot of alcohol in a short amount of time. He tries to follow Ten around in the unfamiliar territory, but he becomes so inebriated an hour into the party that he’s not really sure what’s going on anymore. He loses track of Ten for a few minutes and he follows around a guy named Doyoung, who reunites Johnny with Ten and then drags both of them over to the living room to play a game of Spin the Bottle with a fairly large group of people.

If you were to ask Johnny who had kissed who during the game, he would be unable to provide any answers. He carelessly kisses a few strangers throughout the game, but the bottle spin that is the most notable is the one that lands on Ten. Everyone knows that Ten and Johnny had arrived to the party together, so the room fills with plenty of whistles and hollers when they have to kiss each other.

Johnny just laughs and leans back down to spin the bottle again. “I am _not_ kissing Te—”

Someone whips the bottle away from Johnny before he can even touch it.

Ten pouts up at Johnny and says, “You’ll kiss a bunch of strangers but you won’t kiss me? I’m hurt.”

“I can’t kiss you!” Johnny protests, mildly stressed by the situation. “You’re the president of the media club! You’re practically my boss. That’s illegal.” _Or something like that_. “This is entrapment!”

Doyoung laughs and shoves Johnny closer to Ten. “Kiss him already, loser.”

Johnny decides that he hates Doyoung. Then, after a few beats of hesitation, he turns to Ten and kisses him, eliciting a surprised squeak from the smaller boy. Johnny quickly learns that Ten isn’t a bad kisser; his lips are soft and he moves his mouth in a languid motion that has Johnny craving more. He deepens the kiss when Ten throws his arms around his neck.

There’s a lot of cheering from the other people in the circle and after a while someone tells them to break it up so they can continue with the game. Johnny and Ten finally pull apart, breathless and exchanging dopey smiles. It’s ridiculous. Johnny’s heart is about to pound out of his chest and he feels like a teenager who’s experiencing love for the very first time. Ten stares up at him fondly.

He taps Johnny on the shoulder when the attention of the group has moved on and he whispers into his ear, “We should try that again sometime.”

Johnny chokes and settles for a nod. He attempts to convince himself that a sober Ten would never behave like this and it’s just the alcohol talking. He fails to convince himself of this.

Johnny falls into a trancelike state for the rest of the game, all of his senses honed in on the small touches he exchanges with Ten when their arms accidentally brush and their knees knock together. Johnny also, unfortunately, begins to feel a bit queasy, and he slowly begins to regret participating in all of those drinking games earlier.

When it’s Johnny’s turn to spin the bottle again, he nearly falls face-first to the ground out of dizziness. But he does manage to stabilize himself eventually and he gives the bottle a gentle spin. He glances up to look at the person whom the bottle is pointing at once it’s stopped spinning, and he feels the blood drain from his face when he makes eye contact with an equally horrified Jaehyun sitting across the circle from him.

Several thoughts run through Johnny’s mind in this moment:

  1. Why isn’t Jaehyun at the animal shelter right now?
  2. Does Jaehyun party frequently?
  3. How long has Jaehyun been here?
  4. How did Johnny not notice Jaehyun earlier?
  5. Johnny is about to throw up. Everywhere.



Before Johnny has a chance to say anything, the atrocious beer that he’d shotgunned a half hour ago has made an elegant reappearance and the game dissolves fairly quickly. People evacuate out of disgust and Ten puts a reassuring hand on Johnny’s back, asking him if he’s feeling okay (obviously not, he just threw up all over Doyoung’s poor carpet). Once Johnny manages to catch his breath, he looks up at Jaehyun again, who rolls his eyes before turning to leave the room along with everyone else. Ten guides Johnny to the bathroom down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprisingly this is not a johnten fic


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a b i g b o i

**< < week 6 >>**

Johnny’s spent a lot of time thinking about the horrendous dinner incident with Jaehyun. He thinks about how he looked forward to going out with Jaehyun and how that really couldn’t have gone any worse than it did. He thinks about how it was his fault. He thinks about how Jaehyun probably prints out pictures of Johnny and spitefully defaces them for entertainment every night.

(He also thinks about how he threw up at a house party shortly after kissing the president of the media club right in front of Jaehyun’s eyes. But he can blame that on alcohol.)

Yuta, Mark, and Taeyong are surprised to hear that Johnny’s managed to make Jaehyun hate him again. And yeah, it’s impressive, really. Not many people would be able to pull off such a feat. His friends are also _very_ disappointed in him.

“Did Jaehyun say anything when you apologized?” Mark asks before shoving a taco into his mouth.

“I haven’t really… apologized yet,” Johnny replies tentatively. He knows he shouldn’t have admitted that when Yuta slams his hands down on the dining hall table and a girl sitting nearby yelps a little out of fear. Yuta apologizes to the poor girl and then turns back to Johnny.

“You doofus!” Yuta spits out.

“I’m flattered,” Johnny grumbles. “Genuinely don’t think anyone’s called me that since second grade. This is nostalgic.”

“How could you not apologize yet?” Yuta sounds devastated at this point. “You have to apologize,” he tells Johnny harshly. “Right now.” Yuta stands up. “Let’s go.”

Taeyong frowns up at Yuta. “Where are you going? Jaehyun could be anywhere.”

Yuta sits back down. “Okay, but like.” He sighs in frustration. “You almost made the poor guy _cry_?” When Yuta phrases it like that, Johnny sounds like a monster. “And how are you ever gonna succeed with the dare at this rate?”

Taeyong grumbles. “I think you should just call it off for good this time,” he comments.

The three of them look over at Taeyong like he’s just grown a second head. Sure, Johnny’s not making a terrific amount of progress (if any) but Taeyong had been so enthusiastic about the dare on that particular drunken night six weeks ago that it just seems strange for him to call it quits.

“I’m just saying,” Taeyong begins, flushing red under his friends’ stares, “I feel like someone’s going to get hurt from all of this, and I don’t think I want to be involved anymore.”

“That’s fair,” Yuta says after a short pause. He turns to face Johnny like a stern grandmother. “My money’s only staying in if Johnny gets his shit together and apologizes to Jaehyun.”

~

Jaehyun is maturely giving Johnny the silent treatment when they meet up for their radio show. Jaehyun throws his backpack down, locates his copy of tonight’s script, and studies it quietly without so much as even looking in Johnny’s direction. It doesn’t seem like he even plans on rehearsing with him.

Johnny clears his throat, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Jaehyun’s eyes flit up to meet Johnny’s for a brief second, expression entirely unreadable, then he looks back down at his script. He makes absolutely no effort to speak.

Johnny shifts uncomfortably in his seat, knowing that his apology was shitty so it’s not really Jaehyun’s fault that he doesn’t feel like responding. So he decides to try again.

“I was a huge asshole,” Johnny explains in the most genuine tone he can offer. “This is my fault. I went way out of line without thinking about your feelings and I’m really, very sorry for that. I just…” Johnny pauses. “I was jealous because you’ve done so much more than I have to make the world a better place, but that’s not your fault. I was kind of selfish, really. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me?”

Johnny looks across at Jaehyun hopefully, but Jaehyun doesn’t budge. His eyes scan across his script in his lap as if Johnny hadn’t said anything and he’s reading the most compelling novel of all time. Johnny groans.

“Also, you never apologized for hurting my feelings when you basically told the _entire_ media club that you _despise_ co-hosting a radio broadcast with me, and I’m honestly still offend—”

“Red herring,” Jaehyun suddenly blurts out. “That point has nothing to do with the actual argument.”

Johnny smiles and shoots a finger gun at him. “So it speaks!”

Jaehyun shuts up. Then he fails to suppress a smile and has to cover his mouth with his script in a poor attempt at hiding it.

“Do you accept my apology?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun drops his script and furrows his brow in contemplation. “I don’t know. You sounded kind of constipated while delivering it.”

“I always sound like that,” Johnny insists, and Jaehyun snorts.

“Then I guess I forgive you,” Jaehyun says quickly and quietly.

Johnny leans in and cups a hand around his ear. “Sorry, what was that? A little louder for the folks in the back?”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes and lightly hits Johnny with his script. “I said you’re forgiven,” he reiterates. “A constipated apology receives constipated forgiveness. Now let’s practice the script.”

“You’re so nerdy,” Johnny goes on. “Seriously? Only speaking up when I decide to throw in a fallacy? So incredibly nerdy.”

“I can easily un-forgive you,” Jaehyun warns.

“After all I’ve done for you?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun frowns. “You haven’t… really… done anything for—”

“Okay, okay, you have a point. But so do I.”

“Your point is that I’m a nerd,” Jaehyun clarifies.

Johnny nods.

“I’m not a nerd,” Jaehyun counters.

“Okay, nerd. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

~

Mark lets out an obnoxiously loud burp that seems to bounce off the walls and Yuta grouchily wakes up from his nap on an air mattress that he’d dragged into the lounge. Taeyong also sends Mark an irritated stare from where he’s seated across from him at the table, trying to finish his history reading. Mark doesn’t apologize.

Johnny’s seconds away from tearing his math homework into shreds out of frustration when suddenly the door to the lounge swings opens and Jaehyun walks in with a ceramic bowl and a pathetic can of spaghetti.

To say that a heavy tension has flooded the air would be an understatement. Johnny and Jaehyun are back on good terms, meaning Mark and Yuta are expecting them to hook up sometime soon. This is reinforced when they both send Johnny huge, unsubtle grins, as if they’re expecting Johnny to fuck Jaehyun on the floor of the lounge right in front of them. _That’s unethical_.

Jaehyun says hello to the four of them and beelines straight for the microwave like it’s his only friend. The room falls into a weighted silence and Johnny begins writing random numbers down on his math homework to appear busy.

There’s a high-pitched series of beeps from the microwave when Jaehyun pushes one of the buttons. Then there’s more beeps. And some more. Jaehyun lets out a sigh of frustration and Mark cranes his neck around to look over at Jaehyun in the corner of the room.

“Need some help over there?” Mark asks.

Jaehyun looks like he’s just been betrayed by his beloved microwave. “That would be great.”

Mark walks over to help Jaehyun, and Yuta continues intensely staring up at Johnny from his air mattress on the floor. Agitated, Johnny shakes his head slowly at Yuta when Jaehyun isn’t looking, but Yuta doesn’t budge and continues gauging Johnny’s every move like a hawk. Johnny even catches Taeyong looking over at him out of the corner of his eye. He hates his friends.

“So,” Mark begins, “you and Johnny have a radio show together, right?”

“Stop it, Mark,” Johnny complains from across the room at the same time that Jaehyun says a simple, “Yeah.”

Mark spins around to look at Johnny, like he’s daring him to repeat that. Jaehyun glances over as well and suddenly everyone in the room is staring at Johnny.

“I mean, yes, we do,” Johnny admits. Yuta snickers.

“So you guys must be pretty close, then!” Mark concludes enthusiastically. “Best buddies?”

Johnny doesn’t want to respond. Instead, he makes eye contact with Jaehyun, who looks like a confused kitten. Jaehyun opens his mouth after a few seconds of silence.

“We’re uh— sure.” Jaehyun coughs and anxiously glances at his spaghetti that’s heating up in the microwave, as if he’s hoping that the spaghetti will speak up on his behalf. “We spend a bit of time together,” Jaehyun says when the spaghetti remains silent.

“Are you dating anyone, Jaehyun?” Yuta blurts out.

“That’s a bit of a personal question, don’t you think?” Johnny scolds.

Yuta merely shrugs and turns back to Jaehyun, patiently awaiting an answer.

Jaehyun seems mostly unbothered by the question. “No, I’m single,” he says calmly.

“Got a crush on anyone?” Mark asks teasingly. Jaehyun’s face colors instantly.

“Wow, you guys are acting like the inquisition today,” Johnny comments. “Leave the poor guy alone. Let him microwave his food without being interviewed.”

“Sorry,” Mark apologizes, amiably tapping Jaehyun on the shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Jaehyun shrugs, but he’s clearly stressed.

“Johnny’s single, too,” Yuta states as if he’s trying to make a point. In that moment, Johnny thinks about all the good deeds he’s done for Yuta and how he regrets every single one of them. “You know—”

“He didn’t look so single last weekend,” Jaehyun replies tensely.

“Last weekend?” Mark questions. “What happened last weekend?”

The microwave cuts off Mark by beeping incessantly and Jaehyun opens the door to retrieve his spaghetti. “I’ll see you guys around!” he calls, seeming to be in a sudden rush. “See you tonight, Johnny.” Then he’s gone.

Johnny’s friends are staring at him, still awaiting an explanation.

“I kinda made out with Ten,” Johnny says quickly. He decides to leave out the part where he puked on the floor; it’s not pivotal to the story.

Yuta looks horrified and disgusted while Taeyong simply says, “The number ten?”

“Yes. This weekend I’m targeting the number eleven. Next week I’m shooting for the number twelve. Gonna work my way through every integer.”

Johnny shouldn’t have made that joke because his friends look even more lost now.

“The leader of the media club is named Ten,” Johnny finally explains. “We were at a party. We were drunk. It was Spin the Bottle! I didn’t know Jaehyun was there! I barely even remember it.” The last part’s a lie; Johnny remembers it like it happened yesterday. In his defense, Ten was an amazing kisser.

“You fucking _dumbass_ ,” Yuta groans.

“So are you finally going to throw in the towel?” Taeyong asks Johnny.

“No,” Johnny says, squinting at Taeyong. “Why are you so determined for me to call it quits?”

Taeyong shrugs.

“Do you have something against Jaehyun?” Johnny asks.

Taeyong shrugs again.

“This is actually a very good question,” Yuta jumps in, facing Taeyong. “What’s up with you?”

Taeyong crosses his arms. “I’m allowed to not like certain people.”

“But why?” Yuta asks petulantly.

Taeyong rolls his eyes. “Johnny was right. You guys really _are_ the inquisition today.” The three of them go silent, staring at Taeyong expectantly. Taeyong finally lets out a heavy sigh. “I just don’t trust Jaehyun,” he says. “Something about him seems weird, but I’m not going to stop you from having sex with him.”

Mark snorts. “Johnny doesn’t need anyone to stop him when he keeps fucking it up himself. Just look at what happened last weekend.”

Johnny lets out a distressed noise. “It was a drunken mistake! It’s not like I have feelings for Ten.”

~

Johnny and Ten decide to start hanging out. Actually, “hanging out” might be putting it lightly. It goes like this:

Ten asks Johnny if he wants to see a movie on Saturday. It’s a movie that Johnny’s wanted to see for a while, so he doesn’t want to say no, and nothing about the question implies that it’s a date. Friends see movies together all the time.

After the movie, Ten takes Johnny back to his apartment. They bake cookies together while singing along to a Top 40 radio station that’s blasting from Ten’s phone on the kitchen counter. The cookies end up mildly burnt (they got a bit distracted jamming to Havana) but they simply laugh it off and decide to watch YouTube videos in the comfort of Ten’s room.

Somewhere down the line, Ten ends up kissing Johnny. Johnny kisses him back. Kissing leads to making out. Johnny pushes Ten down on the bed beneath him and Ten wraps his legs around Johnny’s waist. Making out leads to mind-blowing sex— _friendly_ sex, they agree. Purely no-strings-attached. Afterwards, while they’re breathing heavily and coming down from their highs, they agree to keep it under wraps for the benefit of the media club.

 

**< < week 7 >>**

When Johnny meets up with Jaehyun in the studio on Monday night for their radio show, he feels guilty as if the sight of Jaehyun makes him regret sleeping with Ten. Jaehyun asks him about his weekend and Johnny has to look away when he says that it was fine and uneventful. A total lie, but Jaehyun doesn’t know that.

Jaehyun is more playful than usual, teasing Johnny throughout the show and overall seeming to be in a wonderful mood. It makes the guilt seep in even more and Johnny has to hold himself back from snapping at an innocent Jaehyun.

~

 **_mark_ ** _(12:09 a.m.)_

_I HAVE AN IDEA_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:10 a.m.)_

_please stop sending us your star trek fanfiction ideas_

_i'm tired of reading them_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:10 a.m.)_

_what… the_

**_mark_ ** _(12:11 a.m.)_

_shut up yuta_

_they’re better than your otaku anime whatever-the-fuck yaoi fanfics and everyone knws that_

_JOHNNY_

_INVITE JAEHYUN SKIING WITH US_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:12 a.m.)_

_we're going skiing?????_

**_mark_ ** _(12:12 a.m.)_

_yes_

**_taeyong_ ** _(12:13 a.m.)_

_according to who_

**_mark_ ** _(12:13 a.m.)_

_according to me_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:14 a.m.)_

_we were never informed of this_

**_mark_ ** _(12:15 a.m.)_

_sorry i forgot to mention it_

_anyway we’re going skiing!! :D_

_it’ll be fun_

_and we can help johnny get laid!!!!!!!! :D_

_so he won’t be grumpy and salty all the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:17 a.m.)_

_your excessive exclamation points gave me a migraine_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:17 a.m.)_

_this is actually a good idea_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:18 a.m.)_

_but im not grumpy and salty_

**_mark_ ** _(12:18 a.m.)_

_and water isn’t wet_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:19 a.m.)_

_water is not wet actually, so thank you for proving my point_

_seriously google it_

_wetness is a quality of water. water makes things wet. but water itself is not wet_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:20 a.m.)_

_………_

_……_

_…… god you really need to get laid…_

**_taeyong_ ** _(12:22 a.m.)_

_i just googled it_

_johnny’s right_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:22 a.m.)_

_okay. you BOTH need to get laid_

**_johnny_ ** _(12:23 a.m.)_

_?_

_taeyong wanna kill two birds with one stone_

_;)_

**_taeyong_ ** _(12:23 a.m.)_

_!_

_;)_

**_yuta_ ** _(12:24 a.m.)_

_NO please stop_

~

Johnny catches Jaehyun in the study lounge on their floor, engrossed in an economics textbook and with a pair of round glasses framing his eyes. Kinda cute. Definitely looks like he should have a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Johnny sets his own textbooks down at the other end of the table and Jaehyun looks over at him, pulling an earbud out.

“Hello?” Jaehyun greets in a questioning tone.

“Hey, Harry Potter,” Johnny teases. “Expelliarmus.” Jaehyun sends him a glare. “Is it cool if I sit here?” Johnny asks, pointing at the seat that he’s already sitting in. “Or do you have a monopoly over this table?”

Jaehyun blinks.

“Get it?” Johnny continues. “A monopoly? Since you’re reading about economics? Monopolies have to do with economics. Kind of. At least, I think. It’s been a long time since I took high school economics.”

It’s evident that the joke falls flat when Jaehyun simply says, “You’re already sitting there, anyway. I can’t stop you.”

Jaehyun puts his earbuds back in and begins _embarrassingly_ bobbing his head to the beat of his music. Johnny can very clearly hear the song blasting in Jaehyun’s earbuds; it’s some indie song that sounds like a bunch of screaming goats playing ukuleles and Johnny can’t help but wonder how Jaehyun isn’t deaf when he cranks his music up to that volume.

Johnny realizes that this would be a good time to ask Jaehyun about the skiing trip, so he reaches over and taps him lightly with the eraser of his pencil. Jaehyun takes his earbuds out.

“Sorry to interrupt your screaming goat songs, but I actually have something I want to ask.”

“… Did you just say my screaming goat songs?”

“It sounds like screaming goats,” Johnny defends truthfully. “I’m just being honest. And honesty is the most important quality in a friendship.”

Jaehyun peers down at the album cover on the screen of his phone. “Screaming goats…” he mumbles to himself.

“A few friends and I are going on a skiing trip this weekend and we need another person to come along to help split the cost of a cabin. Wanna join us?”

Jaehyun appears flabbergasted. “I— um— this weekend, you said?”

Johnny nods.

“Short notice,” Jaehyun comments.

“ _Spontaneous_ ,” Johnny offers.

“I was going to study this weekend,” Jaehyun says.

“Okay, okay,” Johnny says. “You _say_ that you’re going to study. But.” He holds up a finger. _“Are_ you going to study?”

“Ooh.” Jaehyun purses his lips and stares out of the window contemplatively. “Yes?” Johnny raises his eyebrows. “You’re right. Probably not,” Jaehyun says finally.

“Skiing, then?”

Jaehyun nods and smiles. “Sure.”

~

(“Jaehyun’s coming,” Johnny announces.

Yuta gasps. “Did you guys use a condom?”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Never speak to me ever again, Yuta.”)

~

Jaehyun gets along with Johnny’s friends fairly easily when they’re not busy grilling him about his relationship status. Johnny worries that his friends might love Jaehyun more than they love him, especially when Jaehyun mentions that he made sure to pack his favorite stash of weed and they react ecstatically.

They leave early Saturday morning. It’s a two hour ride to the ski resort, but it feels a lot longer when Johnny’s crammed into the backseat between Jaehyun and Mark. Taeyong had volunteered to drive so he wouldn’t end up stuck in the sandwich in the backseat and Yuta, having the time of his life in the front passenger seat, had won an arguably unfair game of rock-paper-scissors.

Being in the front passenger seat, Yuta has full control of the aux cord. This means that his favorite Japanese rock bands blast throughout the vehicle for the entirety of the journey, although no one seems to mind. This may be due to the fact that Taeyong had initially insisted on listening to the Shrek soundtrack for the length of the trip, and Japanese rock had just seemed miles more bearable in comparison. 

Jaehyun, who had been buzzing with energy when they left, ends up falling sound asleep with his head on Johnny’s shoulder less than halfway into the trip. When Johnny first feels the touch, he looks over thinking that Jaehyun is tapping him in an effort to get his attention, and is stunned to see that the boy has simply dozed off. It’s impressive, in Johnny’s opinion, because Yuta’s music is turned up at such a high volume that the car is shaking, but Jaehyun is completely passed out. His bangs are cascading over his eyes and his cheek is comfortably squished against Johnny’s shoulder and it’s kind of—

“Cute,” Mark comments, snapping pictures with his phone.

“Stop,” Johnny complains, reaching a hand out for Mark’s phone. Mark swipes it away with lightning reflexes.

Johnny begs Mark to delete the pictures but Mark refuses, sounding an awful lot like Johnny’s mother when he insists that they must keep the pictures for their personal memories.

(“But you’re broadcasting them on Snapchat, aren’t you?” Johnny asks, to which Mark nods.)

The ski resort is bustling with activity. After they’ve purchased their passes and rentals, they head out to the slopes. They spend the rest of the daylight skiing, or attempting to ski. Most of their activities involve Mark doing a below average job at explaining skiing techniques. It’s frustrating at first. Yuta falls on his ass so many times that he thinks Mark had only coaxed them into doing this because he’s a sadist, and Johnny crashes trying to get off the ski lift, causing the lift operator to stop the lift so Johnny can crawl out of the way.

When they drive to their cabin at the end of the day, Johnny is tired and sweaty and his calves are screaming. He just wants to flop down on his bed and sleep for a million years.

Until he learns that he doesn’t have his own bed. Nobody has their own bed.

“Sorry,” Yuta says unapologetically, swinging open the door to the cabin, “but the best I could get was a place with two double beds and a pull-out sofa, so some of us are gonna have to share. Hope that’s alright.”

Mark barrels past everyone. “I call the sofa.”

Jaehyun nudges Johnny and sends him an innocent smile. “We can share a room, right?”

“Of course,” Johnny obliges instinctively. Then the full realization of the situation slams into him like a bulldozer. He’s going to be sharing a room with Jaehyun. More importantly, they’re going to be sharing a bed. For several hours. If Johnny really wants to succeed with the dare, then tonight is his best chance. He’s suddenly nervous.

Yuta and Taeyong head down one side of the hallway towards one of the rooms and Johnny follows Jaehyun down the opposite end. Mark has plopped down on the couch and doesn’t seem to plan on getting up anytime soon.

Their bedroom is small. There’s one queen bed, onto which Jaehyun immediately leaps face-first, and a connecting bathroom on the opposite wall. It’s not beautiful but it is livable, and it’s rather cozy.

Jaehyun is already hugging one of the cushions and Johnny sets his bags down in the corner of the room.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” Jaehyun tells him, voice slightly muffled behind the cushion. He sighs heavily and then closes his eyes.

Johnny presses the power button on his phone. “At 5 o’clock?”

Jaehyun doesn’t respond.

“Jaehyun?”

“I’m _sleeping_ , Johnny.”

“Okay, okay, sorry. Sleep tight.”

Johnny turns off the lights on his way out of the room and contemplates throwing a blanket over Jaehyun but decides that that would be too cheesy. He walks into the living room where Yuta and Mark are passionately arguing about Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

“We’re trying to decide on dinner,” Taeyong explains as if it wasn’t apparent.

“Jaehyun’s sleeping,” Johnny says.

Taeyong nods. “He seems to do that a lot.”

Yuta and Mark continue arguing for another few minutes while Taeyong and Johnny observe, and eventually Yuta just throws up his hands in the air and proclaims out of frustration, “Let’s decide in the car.”

Johnny tells Jaehyun that they’re heading out for dinner and promises to get takeout for him. Jaehyun makes a soft affirmative sound. Johnny decides to throw a blanket over Jaehyun anyway. He finds one in their closet, tosses it over the sleeping boy, and then joins the rest of his friends in their car.

“So how are things with Jaehyun?” Yuta asks as soon as Johnny’s closed his door. Johnny can’t see his face due to the darkness of the interior of the car but he knows that Yuta’s grinning at him just by the tone of his voice.

“He seems really tired,” Johnny says calmly. “I think we should try to get back pretty quickly so he doesn’t have to spend the rest of the night at the cabin by himself.”

Mark laughs from the front passenger seat. “That’s adorable, Johnny.”

“Don’t laugh at me,” Johnny whines. “I’m just looking out for him. He’s my friend.”

“Since when do we fuck our friends?” Yuta asks.

Johnny makes a choking noise. “We don’t! I’m not fucking Jaehyun.”

“You would fuck Jaehyun, though,” Yuta says pointedly.

“Only for the money,” Johnny says, face heating up. “It’s not like I have feelings for him. Like, I mean, I like him as a friend. He’s a good friend. But that’s it.”

Mark laughs. “Whatever you say, buddy. We _totally_ believe you.”

“Should we get fast food, then?” Taeyong suddenly suggests. “Since Johnny is terribly concerned about his baby.”

“My _what_?” Johnny asks.

Yuta and Mark proceed to argue about various fast food restaurants for the next few minutes while they drive to the nearest town. Johnny spaces out for most of it. It takes them a while to finally settle on McDonald’s. They’re motivated to compromise only when Taeyong threatens to turn the car around and let everyone starve for the evening. 

“Hey,” Yuta says to Johnny after the discussion has died down. “If you want, we could, like, drop you off later and head off somewhere else for a few hours so you and Jaehyun can have the cabin to yourselves and you can do your… thing…” Yuta connects his right-hand thumb and index finger to make the shape of an ‘O’ and then drives his left-hand index finger through the middle of the ‘O’ repeatedly. Johnny whacks him harshly and Yuta yelps. “But you said you wanted to fuck him!” Yuta argues innocently.

“Taeyong, pull over so we can abandon Yuta on the shoulder of the road,” Johnny demands.

Taeyong turns on his blinker and Yuta lets out another scream of anguish.

“I was trying to help you out!” Yuta reasons.

“I don’t need you guys to do this,” Johnny insists. “I’m not getting laid tonight. I’m telling you, Jaehyun was out like a light as soon we got to the cabin. He’s probably gonna wake up for his food and then fall right back asleep. Not to mention the fact that we've never done anything slightly romantic ever.”

“Sex isn’t necessarily romantic,” Mark challenges. “You’re literally just sweating and swapping body fluids and moaning and groaning—”

“I KNOW WHAT SEX IS,” Johnny says quickly. “Please, _please_ , Mark, don’t describe it. For the sake of everyone in this car.”

They decide to follow through with Yuta’s idea in the end, despite Johnny’s protests. Mark reminds everyone that the main goal of the trip is to get Johnny and Jaehyun to hook up and the rest of them don’t want to be there if/when it happens (Johnny keeps stating that it won’t happen tonight, but to no avail), so they drive back to the cabin, push Johnny out of the car with his and Jaehyun’s respective McDonald’s bags, and drive back into the city.

The cabin is quiet when Johnny walks in. He sets their McDonald’s bags down on the kitchen counter and walks down the hall so he can wake up Jaehyun from his nap. He’s about to gently knock on the door when he suddenly halts, his knuckles only inches away from the wood because he hears an unexpected noise from the other side of the door.

It sounds like a choked cry and Johnny’s mind floods with concern. Is Jaehyun crying?

As if on cue to answer Johnny’s question, Jaehyun lets out a long moan that would put any porno to shame and Johnny quickly realizes that he was very mistaken. He backs away from the door slowly so that Jaehyun won’t hear his footsteps and he retreats to the living room, which is fortunately far enough away from their bedroom that he can’t hear the unholy sounds of Jaehyun getting himself off.

Johnny’s heart is about to pound out of his chest and he can’t quite pinpoint which emotion he’s feeling. He pulls out his phone and cycles through every social media app that he has downloaded in an effort to distract himself from what’s happening just a few rooms away. Needless to say, Johnny does not succeed. He can’t get the sounds and the images out of his head and he rapidly comes to terms with the fact that he had been lying earlier when he’d said that he would only fuck Jaehyun for the money. Like Mark had said, sex doesn’t always have to be an emotional thing (or, he thinks that was Mark’s intended gist) and he’d never planned on sex with Jaehyun ever having any strings attached, but he suddenly begins to doubt himself.

Jaehyun’s a really attractive person, okay? And he’s funny and nice and he volunteers at the animal shelter on the weekends. He’s the definition of ideal. If anything, it would probably be more unusual if Johnny didn’t want to date Jaehyun. And he also seems to be really loud in bed and it’s not Johnny’s fault that he happens to be really _into_ that kind of stuff, and the thought of having Jaehyun gasping underneath him is enough to make Johnny’s brain switch into overdrive—

“Johnny?”

Johnny drops his phone on the wood floor with an alarmingly loud thud and he turns around to make eye contact with Jaehyun.

“Hello,” Johnny says, struggling to maintain even a tiny bit of composure. “You scared me.” He gulps. Jaehyun’s hair is messy and his cheeks are flushed. Of course Jaehyun would look adorable after having an orgasm. _Of course_.

“I thought you guys were getting dinner,” Jaehyun says.

“We did,” Johnny says, pointing at the kitchen counter where he’d set down their fast food and Jaehyun nods in understanding.

“Where’s everyone else?” Jaehyun asks.

“They, um, well.” Johnny panics. They forgot to conjure a lie before dropping off Johnny. How could they be so stupid? “They went somewhere else because they didn’t want McDonald’s and I didn’t wanna go with them.”

“So they dropped you off and headed back? That’s a lot of driving,” Jaehyun comments. Johnny shrugs stupidly. “How long have you been back?”

“Just, uh— like, a few seconds ago, actually.” Seconds, minutes. Same thing. “I’ve been hanging out in here. Didn’t wanna disturb your nap.”

“Oh, okay,” Jaehyun says. But he says it weirdly. Like he knows that Johnny had caught him. Or maybe Johnny’s just over-analyzing the situation. Regardless, it doesn’t take keen observation skills to know that Johnny’s not telling the truth; he’s never been particularly good at lying and he is fully aware that he’s dissolved into a stuttering mess in the past minute. A tragic character flaw.

“How— how was it?” Johnny asks. “The nap,” he adds on hastily. It would be great if he could just shut up.

“You’re so antsy,” Jaehyun says with a laugh. How dare he laugh in this situation. Johnny is in his most vulnerable state right now, desperately trying to cover his hard-on, and Jaehyun has the audacity to laugh. Really. Jung Jaehyun, self-proclaimed virgin and the human embodiment of purity, finds it hilarious that he’s reduced Johnny to a crumbling disaster. “It was alright,” Jaehyun finally says nonchalantly, padding off towards the kitchen. “I’m a little hungry.”

Jaehyun’s completely revitalized after scarfing down his happy meal. He coaxes Johnny into playing an old game of Chutes and Ladders that they’d found in the living room. Jaehyun’s all smiles and carefree laughs for the rest of the evening. Must’ve been a life-changing happy meal. Or a really good orgasm. Johnny isn’t quite sure which.

Jaehyun proudly wins Chutes and Ladders four times in a row.

“This game is all luck,” Johnny protests, throwing his tiny cardboard character down onto the board out of frustration. “It has nothing to do with actual intelligence; it’s not fair.”

Jaehyun, setting up the board for another round, simply shrugs. “Even if it required brainpower we both know that I would still win,” he boasts with a shit-eating grin.

Johnny is offended and refuses to play any more rounds with him. So Jaehyun instead forces Johnny to watch Netflix with him.

(“At least you can’t lose at this,” Jaehyun remarks while he scrolls through the list of movies. Johnny smacks him.)

Jaehyun eventually gets bored of Netflix, deciding that he doesn’t have the attention span for it, and he alerts Johnny of this new development by tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

“This is boring,” Jaehyun tells him.

“This was _your_ idea,” Johnny counters.

“Let’s go outside.”

“And what? Freeze to death?”

Jaehyun nods quickly and tugs on Johnny’s sleeve. “It’ll be fun.”

“You’re a little bundle of energy tonight,” Johnny says. “Makes me wonder if the employees at McDonald’s included a little something extra in your burger.”

Jaehyun frowns. “Are you equating my naturally bubbly personality to that of a druggie?”

“You did bring weed on this trip, after all.”

Jaehyun’s mouth falls open in wonder. “You’re right! I completely forgot! Okay, let’s go outside first, and then we can come back in and smoke.”

Jaehyun appears to have forgotten that the temperature is cold outside in the middle of winter. There also isn’t anywhere for them to explore since it’s almost midnight and their cabin is tucked between a highway and a vast forest. Neither of them really want to go into the forest, but Jaehyun doesn’t want to go back into the cabin because he geeks out when he looks up and sees the stars. He petulantly grabs Johnny’s hand and yanks him down onto the ground with him and Johnny lets out a scream when his jeans get soaked by the snow in their backyard.

“Now my ass is cold!” Johnny pouts, trying to silence the voice in his head that keeps repeating _he just held your hand_. “Do we really have to be sitting down to do this?”

“The Big Dipper!” Jaehyun exclaims, pointing up at the sky.

“I think my ass is a little more important than your precious dead stars,” Johnny states.

“Why should I care about your butt?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny is floored with offense. “It’s a very cute butt,” he declares.

Jaehyun looks over at him with an unamused expression so Johnny lets out a heavy sigh and gazes up at the sky. He can see why Jaehyun is fascinated; they never get to see the stars in Los Angeles and it’s incredible to think about how large and seemingly infinite outer space truly is.

“You know any constellations?” Jaehyun asks him.

Johnny thinks for a moment. “Yeah. The Big Dipper. And the… Little Dipper,” he says.

Jaehyun nods. “They’re technically asterisms and not constellations, but I’ll accept it. Anything else?”

“The Medium-Sized Dipper,” Johnny teases.

“That doesn’t—”

“The Extra Large Dipper with Fries and a Small Coke,” Johnny adds on, now laughing uncontrollably.

Jaehyun covers his face with his hands out of secondhand embarrassment while Johnny takes a few moments to catch his breath. Once Johnny’s settled down, Jaehyun dives into a tangent about his favorite constellations, and Johnny nods along, impressed at Jaehyun’s knowledge.

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, quietly lying next to each other and just appreciating the stars illuminating the sky.

“This is kind of romantic,” Johnny says.

“Remember when you threw up at Doyoung’s party?” Jaehyun suddenly asks, effectively destroying the mood.

Johnny narrows his eyes at him. “Really? _That’s_ what you’re thinking of right now?”

Jaehyun doesn’t say anything for a while and they go back to admiring the night sky.

“You kissed Ten that night, too,” Jaehyun recalls a minute later.

“Kissed a lot of people that night,” Johnny argues, face heating up. “It was Spin the Bottle. Kissing people is kind of the objective.”

“Are you and Ten a thing?”

“Not, like, exclusively,” Johnny answers uneasily. “Why are you asking?”

“Ten has a crush on you,” Jaehyun tells him without any hesitation.

“How do you know that?”

“It's obvious,” Jaehyun replies. “And you’re cute. It makes sense. I don’t blame him.”

Johnny’s eyes bug out of his head and he tilts his head to look at Jaehyun with his jaw dropped open.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Jaehyun whines, shifting away from him.

“You just said I’m cute!”

“In that case, you heard me wrong,” Jaehyun mumbles, turning away quickly. He promptly decides to get back up on his feet. “We should head inside before we get frostbite.” He walks back into the cabin, not checking to see if Johnny’s following.


	4. Chapter 4

**< < week 8 >>**

Jaehyun intentionally crashes his swivel chair into Johnny’s in the middle of one of their commercial breaks for their radio show. “The skiing trip was fun!” he says as Johnny lets out a surprised yelp. “I think I love skiing now.”

“You could barely go down the smallest hill without falling all over yourself,” Johnny points out.

Jaehyun simply shrugs. “I had a pretty neat roommate, though.”

“Really?” Johnny shoots back. “Can’t say the same. My roommate was a blanket hog.”

“Hey!” Jaehyun cries. “I gave you a compliment and this is how you repay me?”

“Yes,” Johnny says straightforwardly. “I was very cold. I had no blankets. You get one star on Yelp.”

Jaehyun huffs dejectedly. “Whatever. You love me.”

Johnny’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “ _Love_ is a pretty strong word. I’d say ‘tolerate’ is a much more fitting choice. I _tolerate_ you.”

Jaehyun frowns. “It’s actually not a fitting choice at all because the connotation of the word implies that you don’t like me, and I know that’s not true—”

“Yeah, well, I think you’re a little biased since you think I’m cute,” Johnny fires back. “So of course you would want me to like you.” It silences Jaehyun immediately. He’s suddenly staring down at his script like it’s the most interesting thing in this room. “Are you going to the media convention this weekend?” Johnny asks.

“Depends. If you’re going, then I don’t want to be there.”

“You’re so bad at this,” Johnny criticizes. “At this whole pretending-to-hate-me thing that you’ve been doing.”

“First of all, I’m not pretending,” Jaehyun claims. “Second of all, I’m _excellent_ at it.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “I was asking because I need a roommate for the trip.”

“I’m a blanket hog,” Jaehyun asserts bitterly. “You should just ask Ten to be your roommate. He’d do anything for you.” Jaehyun pauses. “He would probably give you a kidney if you asked.”

“What am I gonna do with a kidney?” Johnny prompts.

“Remove toxic bodily wastes, hopefully. You should know that, being a biology student.”

“Oh my god, _shut up_. I just want to know if you’ll be my roommate.”

With just a simple shrug, Jaehyun does a stellar job at pretending to appear uninterested. “I’ll think about it.”

Johnny huffs. “Well, think faster.”

“I’ll cut you a deal,” Jaehyun decides. “There’s this party on Thursday that I wanna attend, but my roommate can’t come with me because he’s not gonna be here for the rest of the week, and I don’t wanna go alone. You come with me to the party and I’ll be your roommate this weekend.”

“Uh, sure.” Johnny halts. “Did you just say _Thursday_? Who has a party on a Thursday night? That’s so inconvenient. I have morning classes on Friday, you know.”

Jaehyun raises his eyebrows questioningly.

“I’ll still go, though. I really need a roommate.”

~

“So!” Yuta practically shouts, dropping his textbook down onto the table dramatically and causing everyone in the lounge as well as everyone within a 10-mile radius to leap out of fear. Someone sleeping on the couch under a pile of blankets lets out an aggravated groan. “How was Jaehyun?”

Johnny’s friends are now staring at him like hawks. “I mean, we didn’t really do anything,” he says honestly. “Ate dinner. Played a board game. Watched Netflix. Went outside for a bit. Went back in. Got high. Went to bed. Nothing huge.”

Mark shakes his head. “We really let you guys have the cabin to yourselves for three hours so you could just be a bunch of potheads? This is devastating. I’m beginning to wonder if you just naturally repel Jaehyun.”

“I’m not giving up!” Johnny cuts in with determination. “We’re going to a party together on Thursday and we’re going on a trip with the media club this weekend. It’ll work out. There’s still time.”

“You can’t just get him drunk and take advantage of him, Johnny,” Mark grumbles. “It’s not classy.”

“Good thing that wasn’t my plan,” Johnny replies.

“Then what is?” Yuta asks.

“I don’t know,” Johnny admits. “Just… see where life takes us?”

“Have you talked to Jaehyun about, like, anything…?” Taeyong asks, trailing off, but his message is clear.

“He said I was cute the other night,” Johnny points out vaguely.

Mark snorts. “Practically married, then.”

“I’m just thinking that you shouldn’t force Jaehyun to do anything he doesn’t want to do,” Taeyong says in a very serious tone.

“I know that,” Johnny states.

“And, like.” Taeyong glances at Yuta and Mark. “You guys should stop pressuring Johnny. We were drunk when we dared him and now we’re sober so we should all realize that it’s just a stupid dare and we should stop it before it spirals into something really bad.”

“I don’t get it,” Yuta says with a sigh of obvious annoyance. “Why are you so hung up on this? If they both consent, then I don’t see the problem.”

“Consent is great,” Taeyong says. “Just worried about _how_ Johnny’s gonna get consent when he’s motivated by money.”

“I have morals!” Johnny argues, voice raising a bit. “I’m the one who was opposed to this whole thing in the first place.”

“Then what changed?” Taeyong snaps. “You’re really just doing this for the money?”

“Of course not,” Johnny insists, slightly offended.

“Then you have feelings for him,” Taeyong concludes.

“No,” Johnny says. He takes a bit longer to respond, but if anyone notices his hesitation, they don’t comment on it. “It’s none of your business,” Johnny says.

“Well pick one, Johnny. What other reason would motivate you to sleep with him? You just want to use him for a one-night stand? I thought you had Ten for that.”

Yuta’s mouth falls open in shock. The room’s eerily silent, everyone’s attention set on Johnny.

“You don’t know anything about me and Ten,” Johnny challenges.

“You would be surprised.”

“You don’t even know Ten.”

“You’re right,” Taeyong says. “I don’t know him personally, but he told me everything. Sent me a DM on Facebook messenger last week because he was worried about you. He was sad as hell and he asked _me_ if _you_ were doing okay or if you were mad at him or something because you skipped a meeting for your club and you’ve been ghosting him ever since you guys slept together—”

Unsure how else to dissolve the argument, Mark blurts out, “Hey, guys. Can we chill a little? I’m sure everything’s just a big misunderstanding.”

“I wasn’t ghosting him,” Johnny protests. “I’ve just been busy and I kept forgetting to respond.”

“Ten _likes you_ , Johnny,” Taeyong states. “He likes you a lot. But you can’t even remember to reply to his messages! It takes, like, fifteen seconds to just let someone know that you’ve been busy and can’t talk. If you really cared about him, you would’ve taken the time to do that.”

“I _do_ care. You clearly don’t know anything about me or the situation, Taeyong.” Johnny takes a deep breath. “I would never just take advantage of someone like that and I’m offended that you think I would. I swear I wasn’t trying to avoid him and I don’t know what else I can do to get you to believe me. And I wasn’t using him! We talked about it beforehand. We both agreed that it was just a one-time thing with no commitments.”

“Look, I’m not saying you’re a bad person,” Taeyong clarifies. “Like, okay. Let’s suppose that you not responding to his messages really was just an accident. I still don’t know why you would want to mess around with Jaehyun when you’ve got Ten—”

“I’m calling off the bet,” Johnny suddenly declares. Frustrated, he shakes his head and leaves the room before Taeyong has a chance to react.

~

It’s Wednesday. It’s only been a day since Johnny last spoke to Taeyong, but it feels like decades have passed. He walks past Taeyong in the hallway a couple of times but Taeyong pretends to be preoccupied by his phone and Johnny pretends to not notice him. It’s a fantastic system.

Jaehyun brings cookies to the radio show that night. He’d baked them on Tuesday and claims that he’d greatly overestimated how many cookies he would be able to consume, but Johnny figures that Jaehyun intentionally saved some for him; Jaehyun’s stomach is a bottomless pit and Johnny knows that there’s no such thing as “too much food” for him.

Johnny and Jaehyun are eating cookies during a commercial break when Jaehyun suddenly blurts out, “So Taeyong told me you guys got into a fight.”

Johnny stops chewing. “I didn’t even know you talked to Taeyong.”

Jaehyun shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant, but his ears flush a deep shade of pink out of obvious embarrassment. “We see each other a bit.”

“Oh?” Johnny waits for Jaehyun to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “So you’re like friends?”

“Yeah. Sort of. We’ve just been talking more after the skiing trip and we work on homework together sometimes. That’s all.”

Johnny hums somewhat bitterly, but he doesn’t know why. He has no reason to be bitter. Jaehyun’s allowed to have friends; surely he’s got plenty that Johnny doesn’t know about. If anything, Jaehyun getting along with Johnny’s friends should just be a bonus, but for some reason Johnny doesn’t feel ecstatic.

“How… specific was Taeyong? About the argument?”

“Not very. I just was getting breakfast with him this morning and he looked sad so I asked him what was up and he said you two got into an argument yesterday.”

Johnny narrows his eyes. “Wait, so you guys get breakfast together, too?” Jaehyun doesn’t know what to say and he shamefully looks down at their script to avoid eye contact. Johnny sighs. “Friends get into fights. It doesn’t mean I don’t wanna be friends with him anymore. We’ll get through it somehow.”

Jaehyun just nods.

The walk back to their dorm is long and mostly quiet. Jaehyun tries to fill the long gaps of silence with small talk, but Johnny spends most of his time staring down at his phone, only looking up occasionally to make sure he isn’t about to walk into a post or fall down a set of stairs.

“You’re still coming with me to the party tomorrow, right?” Jaehyun asks, breaking the silence.

Johnny takes a few seconds to think. “Sure.”

“You promise?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny looks up from his phone and over at Jaehyun, who looks startlingly worried. “I promise,” Johnny tells him.

They walk into their dorm building and wait silently for the elevator.

“Are you mad at me?” Jaehyun suddenly blurts out after another minute.

Johnny furrows his brow. “Of course not. Why would I be?”

“I don’t know,” Jaehyun mumbles. “I just want to make sure that you’re going to the party to have fun and not just because you need me to be your roommate for the media convention.”

The elevator dings and the doors pull open, revealing a tired, bare-faced Taeyong sporting duck-printed pajama pants. Jaehyun enthusiastically greets him and Taeyong returns a quick “hey” before walking between them and presumably over to the cafeteria.

He doesn’t even look at Johnny.

~

Johnny yanks out his headphones when he notices a figure looming over the chair on the opposite side of the table. Mark smiles brightly and sets down a small, unopened carton of milk. And nothing else. Johnny’s learned to stop questioning his weird food habits by this point in their friendship.

“How’s it going?” Mark asks.

Small talk. Johnny’s not thrilled about where this conversation is going.

“Just tired,” Johnny says.

“Me too,” Mark says, taking a seat. He opens up the milk, takes a quick sip, and then sets the carton back down. “Have you talked to Taeyong recently?”

Johnny groans. “Can we talk about something else? The guy doesn’t even acknowledge my existence anymore.”

“Sorry. I just don’t want our friend group to, like, fall apart because of a stupid bet.”

“Things have already fallen apart. I’ll just let things between me and Jaehyun go wherever they go. No money involved. And if Taeyong doesn’t want to forgive me, then so be it.”

“I just… can’t understand why Taeyong would be so upset about it,” Mark says, more to himself than to Johnny.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Johnny asks.

“What?”

“Taeyong likes Jaehyun,” Johnny states simply.

Mark chokes on his milk and coughs until his eyes are watering. Someone from a nearby table asks him if he’s okay. He wheezes out an assurance that he’s fine.

“But Taeyong’s straight,” Mark finally counters once he’s caught his breath.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Mark.”

“I’m not joking!” Mark argues. “I see him hanging out with girls all the time.”

“Platonic friends exist,” Johnny replies.

“Yeah, but like…” Mark freezes. “You really think Taeyong has a crush on Jaehyun?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Mark blinks and stares at the wall behind Johnny for a few seconds. “Holy shit,” he says. “It does.” Mark leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “All those times he wanted you to call off the bet. Him getting super emotional about you and Jaehyun. You know, I can’t say I blame him, though. Jaehyun is a _fine_ young man.”

“You too?”

“Oh, no! No, no. I’m straight. For real.” He pauses. “Wait, why don’t you just let Taeyong have Jaehyun? Since he likes him and you don’t.”

Johnny laughs. “Bold assumption, Mark Lee.”

Mark’s eyes stretch impossibly wide and his jaw falls open like it’s suddenly possessed the weight of a brick. “What do you mean?”

Johnny takes a sip of the lukewarm boba he’d picked up from the campus café earlier and he frowns. “This tea isn’t cold anymore,” he comments.

“Johnny,” Mark says strictly. Then he lowers his voice (thankfully). “You like Jaehyun?”

“I don’t know,” Johnny mutters. “Who cares?”

Mark leans forward. “So you _do_ like him. Since when?”

“You’re very curious today,” Johnny notices.

“Stop evading my questions.”

“I don’t have to answer them,” Johnny argues. “You’re not holding me hostage.”

“I could, though,” Mark says. “Or… would you prefer Jaehyun did it instead? Handcuffs and all?” Mark lets out an immature giggle and Johnny rolls his eyes. “So.” Mark is smiling like an idiot now. Johnny hates him. “Johnny has a crush.” Mark drags out the last syllable in a taunting tone.

“You’re so unhelpful, Mark.”

“I beg to differ! I’ve been trying to get you and Jaehyun to hook up this entire term.”

“As a _dare_. That doesn’t count. Plus, this kind of majorly sucks since I think Jaehyun likes Taeyong back.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I don’t, but like.” Johnny pauses, trying to gather his jumbled thoughts. “If by some weird miracle Jaehyun does want to start a relationship with me, Taeyong’s gonna be upset. And if Jaehyun ends up with Taeyong, then I end up being the sad and lonely one. And then there’s the whole mess with Ten, who thinks I hate him simply because I forgot to reply. I tried texting him this morning and he never even opened the message. So there’s really no winning here.”

“Foursome?” Mark suggests.

Johnny snorts. “I don’t think so.”

“I thought you liked Ten, by the way.”

Johnny goes silent. He does like Ten. The sex was amazing, to say the least, and Ten’s been more than supportive. But there’s something about Jaehyun that Johnny just liked on a different level. When Jaehyun’s not mad at him, their chemistry is insane, and the positive comments submitted by their radio’s audience agree with that.

Mark breaks the silence when he realizes Johnny isn’t going to answer. “Alright, well, let’s stick with what we know, and devise a plan from there. We know that you like Jaehyun and that’s about it. I’ll take to Taeyong later, see how he feels about Jaehyun. You confess to Jaehyun and let me know how it goes.”

“I’m not— what? No way, Mark.”

“Come on, bro. Don’t be embarrassed! This isn’t middle school.” Mark downs the remainder of his milk carton in one long gulp. “I gotta go to chemistry. Text me later!”

And then Mark is gone, leaving Johnny alone at the table to dwell on the situation before his next class begins.

~

“I have to tell you a secret,” Jaehyun says, causing Johnny’s stomach to flip inside out. He’s sitting on Jaehyun’s bed, waiting for him to finish fixing his hair in the mirror so they can head out for the night.

“What?” Johnny says.

“I get drunk really quickly.”

Johnny’s pulse slowly begins returning to a normal rate and he mentally curses himself for panicking over nothing. “Don’t drown yourself in alcohol, then. We still have classes tomorrow.”

Jaehyun laughs. “So responsible.”

Johnny smiles. “I try my best.”

It takes Jaehyun quite a bit of time to get ready. The party’s already started but neither of them are in a hurry to get there. Jaehyun’s hair hasn’t been cooperating for the past ten minutes – _“I look like a_ muffin _, Johnny” –_ and Johnny’s been pretending to be preoccupied by his phone while he waits for Jaehyun to get prepared.

Jaehyun’s endearingly frustrated. He’s been dashing all over his room, huffing in the mirror by the sink and spraying various products in his hair, and then staring blankly into his closet because the outfit he’s currently wearing just “doesn’t feel right” even though it looks perfectly fine.

“Well,” Johnny finally interrupts after Jaehyun’s audio speaker finishes playing the seventh song since Johnny’s arrived, “I’d like to go this party before I graduate, you know.”

“Me too,” Jaehyun says somewhat sadly, pouting at his reflection. He switches off his audio speaker and pulls on the blazer he’d tossed on his bed next to Johnny. “I guess this is as good as I’ll look tonight. Do I look cute?”

 _Of course_ , Johnny thinks, but that’s far too forward so he settles for something much more nonchalant. “You look like Jaehyun,” he replies dumbly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you look fine,” Johnny says quickly, pulling open the door and trying to usher Jaehyun out of the room.

“Just fine? That’s it?” Jaehyun questions stubbornly.

“Didn’t know you were fishing for compliments,” Johnny teases. “You look _excellent_ , then. Better?” He says it in a sarcastic tone and with a dramatic eye roll for effect because the best way to lie is to tell the truth while pretending to not mean it. Jaehyun looks pleased, though. Johnny hopes he doesn’t see behind the sarcasm.

The house is dark and it smells weird. It’s nothing like Doyoung’s party and Johnny can’t imagine why Jaehyun wanted to go to this so badly.

Speaking of Jaehyun, he downs shots like they’re water. Johnny tries to stop him after the first two shots, encouraging him to maybe tone down the enthusiasm, but Jaehyun just waits for Johnny to turn away before sneaking more. By his fifth shot, his balance is all over the place and he uses Johnny as a crutch.

Johnny takes one shot (courtesy of Jaehyun) and decides to stop drinking for the rest of the night as it seems more and more likely that he’s going to have to be Jaehyun’s chaperone for the evening.

Jaehyun is weirdly sociable when he’s drunk. He links his arm with Johnny’s and drags the older boy around, introducing him to people even he had never met before tonight. The problem is that Jaehyun naturally gets super bubbly around strangers in hopes of making a good impression and the alcohol makes his bubbliness overflow; he talks fast and the words in his sentences are so slurred that they mesh into one giant super-word and Johnny ends up having to repeat what Jaehyun said, but slower so people can understand. Jaehyun is oblivious to how dumb he appears when this happens.

After an hour or so, Jaehyun says he needs a break and they steal handfuls of snacks from the kitchen and sneak out to eat them on the back porch.

“Pretzels are kind of annoying,” Jaehyun suddenly declares, glancing over at the pretzels in Johnny’s right hand.

“Why’s that?” Johnny asks, chewing on a pretzel. “You trying to start beef with me over pretzels?”

Jaehyun laughs. “They’re just… salty.”

“Seems like you’re the only salty one here,” Johnny comments. Jaehyun drunkenly laughs again, dimples on full display. Bravely, Johnny leans over and pokes one of Jaehyun’s dimples.

“What was that for?”

“For insulting pretzels.”

“Stop being a pretzel supremacist,” Jaehyun complains. Johnny takes his last pretzel and holds it in front of Jaehyun’s face. Jaehyun reels back dramatically. “Get that monster away from me.”

“Here comes the airplane,” Johnny teases, waving the pretzel through the air. Jaehyun claims that he regrets inviting Johnny to the party with him, but he opens his mouth anyway. He chews slowly, contemplatively.

“Okay, that one wasn’t too bad.”

“Told you.”

Johnny sits and waits for Jaehyun to finish his last Red Vine, and then Jaehyun fills the silence.

“Wanna go on a tour of the house?” he blurts out.

“I, uh, um,” Johnny stutters. “Isn’t that a little rude? Since it’s not our house?”

Jaehyun merely shrugs. “Let’s do it anyway.”

So they do. They wait for a group of people to clear past the foot of the stairs and then Jaehyun grabs Johnny’s hand, pulling him up the stairs quickly like they’re a couple of rebellious teenagers.

The second floor has a long, wide hallway with plenty of doors on either side. The hallway light is off as well, so Johnny gets out the light on his phone for navigation. Jaehyun begins walking down the floor with Johnny following closely behind. Jaehyun pushes open the first door cautiously and they both peer in.

“Bathroom,” Jaehyun states. He flips on the light switch and they walk in.

“Gorgeous toilet,” Johnny says.

“Ooh. It’s got dual flushing mode,” Jaehyun notices. “Very fancy.”

“Small sink, though,” Johnny observes. “Not a lot of counter space.”

“Can’t have everything.”

“Overall score… I’d give it a seven,” Johnny concludes.

Jaehyun hums. He spins around in the center of the room and almost falls over from dizziness (thank god Johnny is there to catch him before he gives himself a concussion on the edge of the bathtub) and then he settles on an eight.

The next room is a bedroom. Out of politeness, they don’t enter the room, only looking into it from the doorframe. The floor of the room looks messy in the dark.

“There’s a pile of underwear in the corner,” Jaehyun says with a wrinkled nose.

“Very classy.”

They’re about to start deciding on scores when someone shrieks from the other end of the hallway and shouts something that vaguely sounds like “get the fuck out of my room.”

Johnny and Jaehyun panic. Johnny instinctively grabs Jaehyun’s wrist and they race over to one of the rooms on the opposite side of the hall, slamming the door shut and locking it before they can get caught.

Jaehyun’s giggling like crazy and Johnny has to slap a hand over his mouth so they don’t get exposed due to his giddiness. They hear footsteps on the opposite side of the hallway accompanied by confused chattering. Someone tries to twist the door handle of the room that they’re in, and the stranger lets out an exasperated curse when they realize that it’s locked.

Johnny waits for the stranger to leave before tentatively taking his hand off of Jaehyun’s mouth. Jaehyun laughs softly, finally calming down from the excitement of the situation.

The room they’re in is small and completely dark aside from Johnny’s phone light. Aiming the light to his side illuminates a row of coats. Varsity jackets, winter coats, rain jackets.

“This must be a closet,” Johnny says.

“A closet with a lock?” Jaehyun asks.

“Apparently.”

Jaehyun suddenly gasps. Johnny turns the light to him.

“What is it?” Johnny asks, feeling a little panicked again.

“A closet with a lock,” Jaehyun repeats, but as a statement this time.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Johnny says.

“That means no one else can come in here,” Jaehyun says.

“Unless they have a key,” Johnny clarifies.

“Okay, but like, assuming they don’t.” Johnny and Jaehyun are already standing pretty close to each other because of the closet’s small space, but Jaehyun courageously decides to shorten the gap even more. He puts a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and presses their foreheads together, causing Johnny to step back in shock.

“What are you doing?” Johnny asks.

“Seven minutes in heaven,” Jaehyun slurs with a mischievous grin.

Johnny is at a complete loss for words, remembering the night they met and how Jaehyun so elegantly boasted about how much he wanted to do seven minutes in heaven with Johnny.

But before Johnny can take time to find the right words to say, Jaehyun’s mouth is on his, eyes closed, and he’s trying to deepen the kiss. Johnny lightly pushes Jaehyun away, heart about to thump out of his chest and right onto the floor.

“Jaehyun, you’re drunk,” Johnny tells him, shaking his head rapidly. “We can’t be doing this.”

Johnny can only barely make out Jaehyun’s facial features in the dark lighting, but he can tell the younger boy is pouting.

“Sure we can,” Jaehyun declares. “Like this. Watch.” He leans forward again, pressing a quick peck on Johnny’s lips. Jaehyun pulls away to give Johnny a moment to think. How considerate of him.

“I, uh… I don’t know. I don’t wanna take advantage of you,” Johnny explains.

Jaehyun laughs. “You’re not. I want to do this. Unless you don’t want to.”

Johnny stares at him for a few seconds, scanning his face nervously. “Of course I want to,” he says quietly.

“It’s just kissing, anyway,” Jaehyun says. “No biggie.”

Right. Just kissing. No biggie.

And then Jaehyun surges forward, kissing Johnny harshly like he’s waited to do this for eons. Startled, Johnny drops his phone and the room falls back into total darkness. Jaehyun keeps kissing him, too enamored by the taste of Johnny to even notice the clattering sound of the phone falling to the floor.

Johnny pushes Jaehyun’s back against the door, hands on Jaehyun’s waist. Jaehyun has one hand on Johnny’s shoulder and the other hand threading through Johnny’s hair, trying to somehow bring their bodies even closer together. Johnny pushes Jaehyun’s mouth open with his tongue and Jaehyun lets out a soft moan, his grip tightening on Johnny.

And honestly, it’s the soft moan that does it for Johnny. The sound goes straight to his crotch and he has to break the kiss quickly before things go too far.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun whispers.

Johnny just breathes heavily, leaving Jaehyun’s question lingering in the small gap between them.

 _It’s just kissing_ , Johnny reminds himself.

“Nothing,” Johnny lies. He leans back in, kissing Jaehyun desperately.

Johnny knows he shouldn’t, but he sneakily reaches a hand up Jaehyun’s shirt. Jaehyun gasps at the feeling of Johnny’s cold hand against his skin and Johnny feels him shudder underneath his touch.

“Is this okay?” Johnny asks.

“Yeah. Your hands are just cold.”

Johnny laughs and retracts his hand. “Sorry.”

“No,” Jaehyun says. “I didn’t say stop.” He grabs Johnny’s hands and guides them under his shirt again and Johnny wants to _die_.

They make out for a while until Jaehyun lets out another whine against Johnny’s lips and Johnny pulls back again. Taeyong’s voice echoes in his head: _Consent is great. Just worried about how Johnny’s gonna get consent_.

“What is it?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny is speechless. He wants to fuck Jaehyun so badly but he knows he can’t; not when the taste of alcohol is strong on Jaehyun’s breath, serving as a reminder that they shouldn’t even be doing _this_ when Jaehyun is intoxicated. And Johnny definitely doesn’t want their first time to be in a stranger’s dark closet. But he doesn’t want to say it. 

“Are you hard?” Jaehyun asks.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Jaehyun says casually. “I can get you off in seven minutes. We might be down to four minutes now, actually, but I can still do it.”

“Jaehyun,” Johnny breathes out with a laugh. “ _Jaehyun_. Nooo, no, no. We’re not.” Johnny can’t see Jaehyun, but he can sense the look of disappointment on his face. “Not tonight. Another time,” Johnny promises. “When you’re sober.”

Jaehyun groans dejectedly. “Stupid alcohol,” he mutters, letting go of Johnny.

“Think of it as something to look forward to,” Johnny tells him.

“Can we do it at the convention?” Jaehyun asks, his voice perking up in excitement. Johnny can’t believe this is happening to him.

“Yeah, okay. This weekend, then,” Johnny agrees.

“Can I dom you?” Jaehyun asks.

Johnny scoffs. “In your dreams.”

They head back to their dorm shortly afterward. Johnny heads back to Jaehyun’s room with him, making sure that he’ll be okay on his own before he leaves and returns to his own room on the other end of the hall. Once Johnny’s back in his room, he realizes that his mind is plagued by too many filthy thoughts for him to fall asleep. He needs to take care of this problem.

So he heads for the showers, thanking every deity that the bathroom is empty at this late hour, and he turns on the hot water in one of the stalls.

Johnny thinks about Jaehyun. He thinks about Jaehyun’s mouth and Jaehyun’s shoulders and Jaehyun’s abs. Jaehyun’s soft moans resonate through his head and he thinks about how desperately he wants to hear them again— how desperately he wants to be the reason for those moans. Johnny wraps a hand around his dick. It only takes him a few strokes before he’s tipping over the edge.

It’s going to be a long few days until the convention.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle up folks

**_Ten Chittaphon_ ** _(11:12 a.m.)_

_Can we talk?_

Johnny’s heart leaps into his throat when he reads the message. Ten usually never capitalizes his messages.

**_Johnny Seo_ ** _(11:15 a.m.)_

_yeah, what’s up?_

**_Ten Chittaphon_ ** _(11:16 a.m.)_

_Let’s get lunch. Are you free right now?_

_Meet me at the student union._

~

Ten’s sitting alone at a table in the corner of the food court with an empty bowl in front of him. He’s typing quickly on his phone and he sets it down hastily when Johnny greets him with a gentle “hey.”

“Hi,” Ten returns. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

He doesn’t look mad. Johnny feels a little relieved when he sits down, but worry still floods through his veins.

“Yeah, listen, I’m really sorry. I’ve— I’ve been drowning in assignments and projects and I was really _dumb_ and I didn’t mean to ignore you—”

Ten laughs. “Slow down,” he says.

Suddenly aware of how tense he had become, Johnny sits back in his chair. Takes a deep breath. Loosens his shoulders.

“How’s the radio show going?” Ten asks.

“Things are great,” Johnny replies automatically. “Have you been listening?”

“Yeah, a bit. I really liked the segment you guys did last week about auras.”

“Thanks! It was Jaehyun’s idea.”

Ten nods and the conversation falls silent between them. Johnny glances around the room nervously.

“So,” Ten begins, “I know we were never… _officially_ … together, and we agreed that everything was strictly no-strings-attached, but I guess I need some clarification on what exactly is going on between us. If there’s anything going on between us.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny says again. “For ignoring you. I was really stupid.”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay. I get it. Sometimes people get busy and they can’t reply all the time. I just…” He pauses, twiddling his thumbs. “I get the vibe that you don’t want to... do anymore of what we did that night. Is that right?”

Every word in Johnny’s vocabulary has suddenly vanished from his word bank. He maintains eye contact but doesn’t say anything.

“It’s okay, Johnny,” Ten promises. “I understand. We just need to set things straight so it doesn’t make things awkward in the media club.”

“I, uh— I think things are bound to be awkward no matter what.”

Ten shrugs. “Let’s shoot for less awkward, then.” His voice sounds calm, maybe even nonchalant, but Johnny knows that Ten isn’t fine with this. He looks sad, like a child who’s just had his favorite candy taken away from him, but he’s been told too many times that crying is immature.

“I really like you, Ten,” Johnny says. “You’re a great person and I don’t regret what happened between us.”

“We’re still friends, right?”

“For sure,” Johnny agrees.

“Cool. That’s all I needed to know.”

They talk for a few more minutes about the media club and their classes. The conversation is stilted and lackluster and Johnny starts to feel like maintaining a friendship with Ten might not be possible. It feels like Ten lost his vibrancy and Johnny is the one to blame.

Johnny tells himself to just give it time. Things will lighten up eventually.

The media club’s meeting towards the end of the day is a nerve-wracking event for Johnny. When he walks into the room and makes eye contact with Ten, he receives nothing more than an amiable nod and a forced hello. And then Ten looks away from him as if any prolonged eye contact with Johnny will cause him to catch fire.

When Jaehyun walks into the room, he dives straight for the empty seat next to Johnny and plops down in it with a big, cheerful smile on his face. Jaehyun is especially giggly tonight, cracking jokes left and right while they wait for the meeting to start.

Jaehyun talks to Johnny the rest of the night like nothing even happened between them last night. Like they’re casual friends and this is just another night in the radio station. It’s comfortable, Johnny supposes. It means their friendship won’t be shattered just because of drunken shenanigans.

But then Johnny gets worried. What if Jaehyun doesn’t remember what happened last night? He didn’t seem that drunk, but surely making out with your friend and volunteering to get your platonic friend off in a dark closet would change the dynamic between you and said friend at least just a little bit if you were to remember that happening.

The two of them are walking back to their dorm after the show when a brief pocket of silence falls into their conversation and Johnny takes the opportunity to blurt out, “Do you remember anything from last night?”

Jaehyun looks over at him, soft shadows cast over his face from the street lamps above them. He frowns a bit out of disbelief at the question. “Of course.” He sounds so nonchalant that Johnny’s not sure if his _of course_ really means anything. It’s easy to say you remember when you _think_ you remember.

“Like what?” Johnny prompts.

Jaehyun huffs out a laugh, still looking confused. “Uhm. I remember talking to a lot of strangers. And I remember drinking. And… yeah! I remember eating pretzels on the back porch together!”

Nothing about the incident in the closet, then.

“That’s it?” Johnny prompts further, holding open the door to their dorm building for Jaehyun. They walk over to the elevator together.

A focused expression falls over Jaehyun’s face, gears silently turning in his head as they wait for the elevator doors to open. “I guess so,” he finally concludes. “Why? Did I do something stupid?”

Johnny smiles to hide his pain and jokingly throws out, “You wouldn’t be Jaehyun if you didn’t.”

“What did I do?” Jaehyun asks, appearing worried.

“Nothing. It’s fine. I’m just messing with you.”

When they step out of the elevator, Jaehyun grabs Johnny’s arm suddenly before he walks too far down the hall. His touch feels like fire against Johnny’s skin.

“Hey, wanna come over to my room and chill for a bit? It’s Friday night,” Jaehyun offers innocently.

Johnny hesitates. “Uh… like, what do you want to do?” (Translation: “Do I need to bring condoms?”)

“We could play some video games,” Jaehyun suggests. Johnny stares at him intently, trying to gauge the younger boy. But Jaehyun’s either a master at hiding his true intentions or he genuinely just wants a buddy to keep him company while gaming.

“Sure,” Johnny finally says.

Jaehyun looks delighted. While he unlocks the door to his room, he blabbers on about how upset he’d been about his recent school workload since it’s prevented him from having quality gaming time. The door finally clicks open and Jaehyun turns on the lights. Johnny walks over to the corner of the room and shrugs off his backpack while Jaehyun shuts the door.

“So what do you wanna play?” Johnny asks, spinning around to face Jaehyun.

But Jaehyun doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he rushes over to Johnny with a look of pure lust ingrained his eyes, placing his hands on the back of Johnny’s neck to pull him closer so he can kiss him. Jaehyun moves his mouth against Johnny’s roughly, biting down on Johnny’s lower lip. Johnny’s eyes fall shut as he melts into Jaehyun’s embrace.

“I told you I remember everything,” Jaehyun whispers, breaking the kiss for a second and dumping his backpack on the floor behind him.

“So no video games? You’re a liar? I was misled?”

Jaehyun smiles. “Maybe later. I just really want you right now—” Jaehyun emphasizes this with a tug on one of the belt loops on Johnny’s jeans, pulling him closer and forcing a gasp out of him, “—and I think waiting for the convention tomorrow would be stupid when my roommate’s gone right now and we’ve got this room all to ourselves tonight.”

“You’re sure this isn’t, like, too hasty or anything?” Johnny doesn’t know why he’s so nervous; he’s usually never this talkative before or during sex.

“I’m sure,” Jaehyun says softly. “And I hope you remember what I said last night about getting to be the dom.”

Johnny lets out an astounded wheeze. “You were just kidding, though,” he states with assurance.

“Was I?” Jaehyun pushes Johnny back onto the bed behind him, and then he crawls on top of him to straddle his waist. The giggly Jaehyun that Johnny had been talking to earlier has completely disappeared, replaced with someone more desperate and aggressive. And Johnny thinks it’s… hot?

“Wait,” Johnny begins. “Isn’t this your first time? I thought you said you’re a virgin.”

“Oh, of course not,” Jaehyun says. “That was a lie. I have to maintain my clean image.” He presses a chaste kiss to Johnny’s lips. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

Before Johnny gets a chance to truly ponder Jaehyun’s impurities, Jaehyun’s leaning down to make out again. He slides his tongue gently over Johnny’s lips until Johnny lets his mouth fall open for him. Then Jaehyun repositions himself, shimmying forward a bit until he’s seated in a comfortable spot on top of Johnny. Cautiously, Johnny moves his hands first over Jaehyun’s thighs, caressing them gently, then he moves his hands under his ass. He gives his butt a firm squeeze and Jaehyun lets out a weak and surprised whimper on top of him. Johnny laughs into their kiss.

“An irresistible dom who crumbles when I grab his butt,” he chimes in.

“Quit laughing at me,” Jaehyun says, with all the intimidation of an angry kitten.

Johnny just laughs more. “You’re so cute.”

Taking that as some sort of challenge, Jaehyun grinds down harshly, earning a startled moan from Johnny.

“Still funny?” Jaehyun asks. Johnny looks up at him in an awestruck silence, chest moving rapidly as he tries to catch his breath. “That’s what I thought.”

Jaehyun reaches down to unzip Johnny’s fly when suddenly a deafeningly loud fire alarm starts blaring through the room and throughout the entire building.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?” Johnny shouts over the noise, zipping his jeans back up while Jaehyun leaps off of him.

It’s a horrible time for a fire. Students are shouting at each other in irritation in the hallways, many of them wearing pajamas and looking like they’ve just awoken from deep slumbers.

“Should’ve just died in the fire,” Johnny grumbles when they’re out on the lawn at midnight in the middle of winter among a crowd of angry college students. The two of them are sitting on a wooden bench, pressed up together to stay warm. Johnny’s got his legs crossed to hide his boner.

“Your hair’s a mess,” Jaehyun comments, reaching a hand over to fix it for him.

“And whose fault is that?” Johnny shoots back.

“Hey,” a voice interrupts. Johnny looks over to see Yuta, Mark, and a very reluctant Taeyong heading their way.

“I’m so pissed,” Yuta says.

“I think that seems to be the general consensus,” Johnny mumbles.

Taeyong looks at Johnny, and Johnny returns the stare. Johnny watches Taeyong’s gaze slide over to Jaehyun, and then back to Johnny with a wide-eyed expression on his face.

“Were you guys asleep, too?” Mark asks, in regards to their messy hair.

It’s kind of a stupid question since they’re both still wearing jeans. Nonetheless, Jaehyun and Johnny both respond with immediate yesses.

It takes another thirty minutes of waiting outside in icy cold conditions before they’re allowed back inside. Apparently some pathetic soul had tried to microwave Kraft macaroni and cheese without filling the container with water and all of the smoke alarms had gone off as a result.

When they’re back on their floor, Johnny lurks around in the hallway for a few minutes as the crowd settles in, waiting for his friends to head off to their rooms before he sneaks back into Jaehyun’s room with him. They’re both tired.

“Save the video games for tomorrow?” Johnny suggests, following it up with a yawn and grabbing his backpack in the corner.

Jaehyun just sits on the edge of his bed for a few beats, eyes falling shut with exhaustion. He internally battles his need for sleep with his need for dick, and then says, “I guess so.”

Jaehyun gives Johnny a quick peck on the cheek before Johnny returns to his room.

~

Johnny’s alarm goes off on Saturday at 6:30 and he mentally curses whoever decided it would be a good idea for the media club to meet up at 8 on a weekend. Johnny hastily showers, throws some clothes in a suitcase, and shoots Jaehyun a quick text.

 

**_johnny (7:34 a.m.)_ **

_yo wanna meet up first and then walk to the rest of the group together?_

 

While Johnny waits for Jaehyun’s response, he crams a few last-minute toiletries into his bag. But fifteen minutes pass and there’s no reply. By 7:53, Johnny decides that he can’t wait for Jaehyun’s answer without risking being late, so he locks up his room and begins his journey across campus.

He hopes Jaehyun didn’t sleep through his alarm. Johnny doesn’t really know anyone else in the club aside from him and Ten, so it would be a very lonely trip for him considering his awkward terms with Ten. Plus, Jaehyun promised to be his roommate, so it would be pretty shitty of him to suddenly bail.

When Johnny turns the corner towards their meeting spot, he notices a crowd. And, to his relief, he notices Jaehyun standing towards the edge of the crowd, talking to one of the other members. Johnny walks over to them and is about to say hello when he’s cut off by Ten, who starts announcing the agenda for the day and listing out roommates.  Then the group begins boarding the bus.

Johnny taps Jaehyun on the shoulder. “Wanna sit together?” he asks.

Jaehyun looks at him. “I already told Taeil I would sit with him,” he says.

“Oh,” Johnny says. “That’s fine.”

He expects Jaehyun to at least express some kind of apology for leaving Johnny to sit alone, but Jaehyun doesn’t say anything else. Johnny takes the seat across the aisle from Jaehyun and Taeil and he stares out the window with his headphones on full blast as the bus pulls away from the curb.

It’s an hour drive to their destination because of how terrible traffic is at this hour of the day. Johnny waits for Taeil to fall asleep before he strikes up a conversation with Jaehyun.

“Did you get my text earlier?” Johnny asks him.

Jaehyun simply shakes his head with no further elaboration. Johnny doesn’t know what more there is to say, and it’s clear that Jaehyun isn’t eager to make conversation.

“Is everything okay?” Johnny questions.

Jaehyun yawns, crosses his arms, and closes his eyes. “I’m just tired, Johnny.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

Johnny resumes staring out the window. Once they arrive at their hotel, they’re given a half hour to take their luggage up to their rooms before they have to meet down in the lobby to walk over to the convention center together.

Johnny and Jaehyun head up to their room in a heavy silence. Johnny tries to make small talk, asking him how he slept and what he plans on doing at the convention later, but Jaehyun limits his responses to three or fewer words. When they get to their room, Jaehyun tosses his duffel bag in the far corner, sits down at the edge of their bed, and stares down at his phone in more silence.

Almost everyone else had been stuck in four-person bedrooms with two double beds, but Johnny and Jaehyun had been one of the few members who were “lucky enough” to get a two-person room since the hotel was tightly booked for this weekend. But Johnny’s not sure how lucky he is when his only roommate doesn’t even want to attempt to hold a conversation with him.

Johnny uses the restroom quickly and is surprised to see Jaehyun hasn’t moved from his original spot when he gets out.

“Jaehyun,” Johnny says.

Jaehyun hums half-heartedly in acknowledgement, eyes still glued to his screen.

“The fuck’s going on?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun finally looks up, shooting a bitter glare at Johnny. “I’m just looking at Twitter. Is that a crime?”

“You’re obviously mad about something,” Johnny challenges.

Jaehyun bites his lip, then looks back down at his phone as if the conversation’s ended.

“Dude,” Johnny says. He takes a seat on the bed next to Jaehyun. “Tell me what’s up.”

“I wish I was roommates with Taeil,” Jaehyun mutters impatiently.

Johnny is flabbergasted. “ _What?_ What did I do wrong?” Johnny stares at Jaehyun, awaiting a response, but he doesn’t get one. Johnny just watches Jaehyun scroll endlessly down his social media timeline. Johnny lets out an exasperated sigh. “The silent treatment, Jaehyun? Really?”

A few more seconds pass.

“I know about the bet,” Jaehyun mumbles. “I think it’s your turn to explain,” he decides, finally setting his phone down so he can look Johnny in the eyes with the coldest stare Johnny’s ever received from him. “So you just wanted to use me for a couple of dollars?”

“It’s— no— I— it’s not like that!” Johnny stutters. “Who told you about it?”

Jaehyun scoffs. “So it’s true.”

“Uh— yes, there was a bet, but—”

“Oh my god,” Jaehyun groans, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a dumbass.”

“Listen, Jaehyun, please—”

“I don’t care,” Jaehyun cuts in.

“Jaehyun, just let me explain!”

“I don’t care what kind of excuses you’re going to make. I don’t want to hear them. It’s true and that’s all that matters.” Jaehyun unlocks his phone to check the time. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late.”

Unsurprisingly, Jaehyun doesn’t want to hang out with Johnny at the convention. He latches onto Taeil and Taeil’s group of friends and Johnny lurks awkwardly by himself. After a few minutes, he notices Ten sitting on a bench in the corner of the convention hall, gazing down into a folder in his lap. He looks frustrated and Johnny decides to walk over.

“Hey there,” Johnny says.

Ten looks up, then back down at the folder. “What’s up, Johnny?”

“You tell me,” Johnny says, sitting next to him.

“Being the president of the club is so stressful,” Ten says. “It’s gonna be a long day.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny tells him.

Ten closes the folder and looks up at him with a smile. “It’s okay. Not your fault. Let’s get food and then walk around?”

Johnny spends the rest of the day wandering around with Ten and a few other students from the club that he’d never gotten to know before today. The tension between him and Ten seems to dissipate slowly and Johnny feels relieved. They check out various booths, pick up freebies, and attend a few workshops together.

The situation with Jaehyun eats away at the back of Johnny’s mind like a parasite. Sometimes it takes him longer to react to Ten’s statements and Ten picks up on the lag pretty quickly. They’re sitting in front of a stage, waiting for the speaker to begin his speech, when Ten suddenly says, “Something’s wrong.”

Looking over with wide eyes, Johnny replies, “What do you mean?”

“You,” Ten says. “You’ve been… spacey all day. Like you’re not really here mentally.”

Johnny laughs nervously. “Yeah, no, I’ve just been stressed out.”

“Hmm.” Ten crosses his legs and turns to face Johnny. “Wanna talk about it?”

He definitely wants to talk about it— he _needs_ to get it out of his system, but Ten is probably the least appropriate person to discuss it with. Johnny must look pretty conflicted because after a few seconds Ten assures, “You can tell me anything, I promise. I won’t judge.”

Johnny takes a deep breath, then he tells the story, complete with all of its imperfect details. He gauges Ten’s reactions carefully, especially when he gets to the parts about making out with Jaehyun. He expects Ten to appear hurt due to their history together, or maybe even tell him to stop talking altogether because Johnny’s an asshole for agreeing to partake in such a horrible bet in the first place, but he doesn’t. He just nods along, waiting for Johnny to explain everything before chipping in with his opinion.

“I think he’s just a little lost about everything, so he’s feeling hurt. Just tell him exactly what you told me. He’ll get it. We all make mistakes. Jaehyun’s not the type of person to hold grudges.”

“He won’t even listen to me,” Johnny counters.

“He will,” Ten promises. “Just give him time and be gentle. He obviously cares about you, and it sounds like you both want this to work out, so you just have to communicate. And don’t dwell too much on this. No relationship is perfect. Things will get fixed, I know it.”

Johnny smiles slightly. “Thanks for the support, Dr. Phil.”

Ten smiles back. “Of course. Like I said, you can tell me anything.”

When the convention ends, Johnny has no choice but to head back to his room. As he approaches the door, faint music pulsing through the walls grows louder. He presses his key card up to the scanner and opens the door slowly to see Jaehyun lying on the bed in the fetal position with his phone in his hand, blasting Ed Sheeran on a Bluetooth speaker. He doesn’t look at Johnny.

“Are you going to the party later?” Johnny asks him, closing the door behind him. There’s a formal party at the convention center later in the evening, advertised to have a short movie screening as well as free food and drinks.

“Depends,” Jaehyun says. “Are you going?”

Johnny blinks. “Let me guess. If I’m going then you’re staying here, and if I’m staying here then you’re going.”

Jaehyun nods.

“Well, at least you’re honest.” Johnny slips off his shoes and crawls up onto the bed, sitting cross-legged to face Jaehyun. “Look, can we talk?”

Jaehyun takes a moment to turn off his music. “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“I’m really sorry.”

“For?”

Johnny bites back a sharp comment. “For the bet. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have agreed to do it.”

“Then why did you?” Jaehyun asks.

“Because… because I was drunk and I felt pressured and it was a lot of money,” Johnny admits. “And you liked me so I thought it would be easy,” he finishes shamefully.

“Interesting. Do you still see easy money when you look at me? Is that why you made out with me?”

“No way,” Johnny says with a scowl. “I’m not like that.”

“But you _were_ like that,” Jaehyun points out. “Right?” Johnny remains silent, which Jaehyun takes as an affirmative. “So how am I supposed to believe that you aren’t anymore?”

“Because we’re _friends_ now,” Johnny claims. “I wouldn’t do that to a friend. And I shouldn’t have done it at all in the first place to anyone, to be honest.”

Jaehyun sits up, obviously infuriated now. “And how am I supposed to know that we’re genuinely friends and not just friends because you’ve been manipulating me this whole time to get me to fall in love with you?”

“I— wait— you’re in love with me?”

Jaehyun’s face flushes red. He wordlessly falls back against the pillow propped up on the headboard behind him, wraps his arms around his stomach, and rolls onto his side to face the wall, away from Johnny.

Angry at how much of a mess this has turned into, Johnny lets out a sigh.

“Do you know how much it sucks?” Jaehyun finally murmurs, his back still facing Johnny. “To hear that the person you thought truly cared about you was actually just trying to use you the entire time and doesn’t give a shit about you?”

“That’s not true, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun is unconvinced. “Then what the hell was last night? And the party?”

Johnny hesitates before saying, “Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I did that because I love you, too?”

“Nice try.”

“Hey,” Johnny says softly. He reaches a hand over to Jaehyun and attempts to roll the boy over onto his back, so he can at least see his face again. “The bet’s not on anymore,” he tells Jaehyun, who has now squeezed his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look at Johnny. “I promise. I know it was super awful of me to befriend you just because my friends dared me to get in your pants, but—”

Jaehyun opens his eyes and groans loudly, repulsed at Johnny’s phrasing.

“Hear me out! But I don’t regret anything because I gained a great friend out of it.”

“Hmm.” Jaehyun sounds uninterested.

“Wanna hear about the friend?” Johnny doesn’t wait for Jaehyun to respond. “He’s a really nice and amazing person and he spends his free time volunteering at the animal shelter and he’s super passionate about taking care of the environment. He bakes amazing cookies and he shares them with me even though I know he hates sharing food with people. He’s super smart, too! I always catch him studying. A huge nerd.”

“Thank you.”

“He knows a ton of stuff about constellations, even though to me they just look like a bunch of white dots scattered throughout the sky. He’s always been kind of skeptical with me from the moment we met because I messed up and spilled soup all over him, but—”

“Still mad about that.”

“But you still gave me a chance even though I was irritatingly persistent about pursuing a friendship with you. Like, I was borderline stalker-ish. You totally should’ve gotten a restraining order or something, but I’m glad you didn’t because as I got to know you, I guess… I kind of realized that I like you.”

Jaehyun looks at Johnny cautiously, like he’s trying to decide whether or not Johnny’s telling the truth.

“And even though I won’t be getting a cash payout for sleeping with you, I still want to be with you because I really, really like you. We don’t even have to have sex ever, if you don’t want to. We could just stay friends, if that’s what you want. But you’re super cute and super funny and I really want you to forgive me and I really would like to be more than friends.”

“I don’t believe you.” Jaehyun narrows his eyes at Johnny.

“Pinky promise,” Johnny tries, holding out his right pinky finger towards Jaehyun. “I’m not lying.”

Jaehyun looks down at Johnny’s pinky, then back up at Johnny. His mouth curves into a small smile. “Johnny, I’m not eight.”

“YousmiledIwin,” Johnny blurts out quickly. He grabs Jaehyun’s hand to link their pinky fingers together in what can only be described as a sacred promise.

Jaehyun rolls his eyes. “That’s not how this works. We have to settle this like adults.”

“Like adults, you say?”

Jaehyun smacks him lightly on the shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

The two of them fall silent, just staring at each other quietly. Johnny’s the one who breaks the silence. “I brought lube,” he declares eloquently.

“Ugh!” Jaehyun grabs a pillow to hide his face.

“We don’t have to use it, though!” Johnny assures. “We can just sit here and do nothing and I would still be having tons of fun as long as I’m here with you. I swear.” Johnny pauses, then decides he has nothing to lose, so he might as well vocalize his most intrusive thoughts. “Also, make-up sex is kinda hot, if we’re being real, and I just want you to know that—”

Jaehyun sits up quickly, throws the pillow to the side, and pulls Johnny down to kiss him deeply. After the initial shock and confusion passes, Johnny kisses him back forcefully, sliding his tongue into Jaehyun’s mouth. With their mouths still slotted together, Johnny moves into a better position so his body is caging over Jaehyun and he’s kneeling between the younger boy’s legs.

“You know what we could do?” Jaehyun says, interrupting the kiss. “Play along with the bet and then split the money.”

Johnny laughs. “But I already called off the bet.”

Jaehyun groans. “What’s the point, then?”

“Oh, so you’re just using me for money,” Johnny teases.

“You’re not allowed to joke about that when that’s what you were really doing,” Jaehyun says with a frown.

“Okay, okay. Sorry.”

They kiss some more, soft and slow, like they’re taking time to just admire the tastes of each other. Jaehyun trails his hands inside Johnny’s shirt, desperately running his fingers over Johnny’s abdomen as if he’s trying to memorize every curve of Johnny’s body. Johnny rolls his hips down into Jaehyun’s and Jaehyun lets out a surprised yelp at the sudden friction. Johnny roughly grinds down on Jaehyun and the room fills with the sounds of Jaehyun’s quiet moans and gasps with every movement of his hips, just for Johnny.

“I want to make you feel good,” Johnny suddenly whispers with their faces only inches apart. “Will you let me do that for you?”

Jaehyun gulps and nods frantically, anxiously awaiting Johnny’s next course of action. Johnny crawls further down the bed and unbuttons Jaehyun’s jeans. He glances up at Jaehyun, who’s got his mouth open in a small ‘O’ shape, before he starts pulling the jeans off of his legs. He tosses them on the floor and then reaches his hand into Jaehyun’s underwear, wrapping a hand around Jaehyun’s dick and watching him tense up. Johnny gives him a few strokes, admiring the way Jaehyun falls apart underneath him with low gasps.

Johnny finally pulls Jaehyun’s briefs down. Jaehyun’s harder than he expected him to be at this point, but Johnny takes it as a compliment. He pumps Jaehyun’s dick a few more times, then maintains careful eye contact with him as he licks a stripe on the underside of his dick. He wraps his lips around the head and Jaehyun gasps and bucks up, watching Johnny intently. Johnny bobs his head, starting a careful rhythm, and he feels Jaehyun’s fingers tightly thread through his hair. Then, in one quick second, Johnny deep throats Jaehyun, tears stinging at his eyes when he feels Jaehyun’s dick hit the back of his throat.

Jaehyun lets out an obscene moan, throwing his head back against the pillow. “ _Fuck_.” Johnny pulls off to get some air, and then resumes bobbing his head, using his hand to pump the base of Jaehyun’s dick. “You’re so— you’re so good at this,” Jaehyun pants. Johnny feels Jaehyun’s dick twitch in his mouth and he picks up the pace. “I’m so close— I—”

Carefully timed, Johnny pulls off before Jaehyun can end his sentence and Jaehyun sends him a shocked and disappointed look, offended that Johnny would do that to him. 

“I don’t want you to finish yet,” Johnny tells him, reaching down to unbutton his jeans. “I want you to come around my dick.”

The words alone are enough to almost send Jaehyun tipping over the edge, but he holds back. He reaches over to the nightstand next to the bed while Johnny gets undressed, awkwardly fumbles with the handle of the drawer before managing to get it open, and retrieves a condom, then some lube.

Johnny laughs. “ _You_ brought condoms and lube?”

Jaehyun just nods and sits up so he can take his shirt off, tossing it on the floor next to Johnny’s.

Johnny laughs harder. “So even though you hated me, you were still planning on fucking me this weekend?”

“I—” Jaehyun pauses. “Well we _are_ fucking, aren’t we? Or we’re about to, right? So it’s a good thing I came prepared. You’re welcome.”

Johnny shakes his head adamantly. “I want an explanation.”

“You’re so annoying,” Jaehyun complains. “I _was_ mad at you, but I also really like the concept of having sex with you,” he continues, blushing furiously, “so I figured it would be better to play it safe.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Johnny states with a wide grin.

“Believe it,” Jaehyun snaps. “Can we go on, now?”

Johnny takes the lube from Jaehyun and uncaps it. He squeezes some onto his fingers then pushes Jaehyun’s knees further apart, tracing his hole gently. He feels Jaehyun tense up a bit at the touch.

“Okay?” Johnny asks. Jaehyun nods, clearly not a fan of words when he’s sexually frustrated. Johnny slides a finger in and flexes it, soon adding a second finger and then a third. Jaehyun adjusts to the intrusion quickly, and it’s not long before he’s grinding down on Johnny’s hand, soft moans a clear indicator that he’s begging for more.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Johnny murmurs, removing his fingers and bowing down to press a soft kiss to the inside of Jaehyun’s thigh. “I would do anything for you.”

“Fuck me already, then.”

Johnny scoffs. “That was blunt.”

“You said anything.”

Johnny tears open the condom packet that Jaehyun had set on top of the nightstand. He rolls on the condom, then lines himself up with Jaehyun’s hole, maintaining eye contact with Jaehyun as he pushes in slowly until he’s bottomed out.

“How do you feel?” Johnny asks him.

“Just give me a sec,” Jaehyun says. “Hurts a bit.”

Johnny leans down, kissing Jaehyun to help him relax. “Just tell me when.”

Jaehyun kisses Johnny sweetly and passionately, unlike anyone Johnny’s ever kissed before. It’s like he’s trying to make up for all the kissing they hadn’t been doing over the course of the term. After a minute, Jaehyun instructs him to move, and Johnny thrusts shallowly, watching Jaehyun’s face carefully to make sure he’s not hurting him. Johnny pushes Jaehyun’s legs apart a little more, trying to get a good angle. He rocks his hips gently a few more times and suddenly Jaehyun lets out a long moan.

“Right there,” Jaehyun gasps.

Johnny thrusts slowly but deeply, trying to hit Jaehyun’s prostate again. It takes a few more thrusts before he succeeds, but the sound that Jaehyun makes when Johnny hits the right spot is more than rewarding, almost making Johnny come immediately.

Once Johnny finds the perfect angle, he pulls out almost all the way before quickly slamming back in again. Jaehyun moans Johnny’s name so loudly that Johnny can only pray the hotel has thick walls so they don’t end up getting kicked out of their room.

“That’s it,” Johnny whispers, rolling his hips into Jaehyun as fast as he can. “Tell me how it feels.”

“Feels— amazing—” Jaehyun is too weak to say anything else; he just cries and shouts, fingers tightening their grip in Johnny’s hair.

“Never thought I’d have you like this,” Johnny breathes out. “So tight, so submissive.” He wraps a hand around the base of Jaehyun’s dick, stroking him in time with his thrusts. Jaehyun whimpers and clenches around Johnny’s dick.

“Come for me, Jaehyun,” Johnny orders, ramming into him harder. Johnny thrusts one, two, three more times and then Jaehyun’s coming with Johnny’s name spilling from his lips.

Johnny fucks Jaehyun through his orgasm until he comes with a silent gasp, deep inside Jaehyun’s heat.  Then he pulls out slowly and flops down on the bed next to Jaehyun.

After a minute of trying to catch his breath, Johnny says, “Nice.”

“Nice?” Jaehyun asks, face flushed and his bangs stuck to his forehead from all the sweat. Johnny nods in return, then holds a hand out. Jaehyun looks at it in confusion, like he’s never seen a hand before, then Johnny explains.

“High five.”

Jaehyun bursts out laughing. “I’m not high-fiving you after sex, Johnny.” He bravely grabs Johnny’s hand in the air and interlocks their fingers together instead.

“Oh,” Johnny says, taken aback. “That’s fine, too.”


	6. Chapter 6

Johnny wakes up the next morning when he feels a gentle poke on his side. He opens one eye and sees a sleepy Jaehyun with a very messy hairdo staring at him.

“I forgot that I was supposed to dom last night,” Jaehyun whispers.

“Good morning to you, too, sweetie,” Johnny deadpans.

“I’m serious. We’re gonna have to do it again.”

“Right now?” Johnny asks.

“We still have a few hours before we need to be at the bus,” Jaehyun justifies.

So they fuck again just to pass the time. They switch roles this time; Jaehyun fucks Johnny slowly and carefully because it’s the first time Johnny’s been on the receiving end. It’s crazy to Johnny how differently Jaehyun acts when he’s the one in charge. He’s a lot quieter but a lot more caring and Johnny loves it.

They both sleep throughout the entire bus ride back to campus, too exhausted from all the sex. When they arrive back in their dorm building, they see Yuta at the opposite end of the hallway on their floor. He waves at the two of them and then walks over with a yogurt cup in one hand and a plastic spoon in the other.

“How was the conven— oh my god.” Yuta freezes halfway on his journey of walking towards them. “ _Oh my god_.”

“What’s wrong?” Johnny asks.

“You guys are glowing.” Yuta walks closer, squinting and eyeing the two of them up and down.

“Can you stop checking us out, dude?” Johnny says.

“I can’t believe it,” Yuta says. “You guys finally hooked up!”

It’s at this unfortunate moment that the door adjacent to where they’re standing pries open and the resident in that room ends up catching the second half of Yuta’s sentence.

It’s even more unfortunate that the resident happens to be Taeyong; a very bewildered-looking Taeyong who stares at Johnny and Jaehyun with an evaluative expression. Jaehyun nervously takes a giant step away from Johnny, as if that’ll erase the sex they had together.

The four of them remain completely silent. A few heavy seconds pass and then Taeyong hurriedly walks past them and down to the restroom. The restroom door falls shut with a loud thud that echoes down the hallway and Johnny says, “I’ll go talk to him.”

“What if he’s, like, just going to take a shit?” Yuta questions, but Johnny’s already gone.

Johnny briskly pushes open the bathroom door and walks up to the only locked bathroom stall before knocking lightly. But Taeyong doesn’t respond.

“Taeyong?”

“Go away,” Taeyong grumbles.

“I just want to talk.”

“About what?”

“I think you know.”

The latch on the door clicks and Taeyong lets gravity swing the door open. He’s sitting on the toilet lid, staring at Johnny with a cold and hurt expression.

“What more is there to say?” Taeyong says. “What’s done is done, I guess. I get to lose two friends.”

Johnny takes a deep breath. “You like Jaehyun, don’t you?”

Taeyong maintains eye contact but doesn’t respond.

“I’m really sorry,” Johnny says.

Taeyong scoffs. “I’m sure you are,” he spits out sarcastically.

“Can I just make one request?” Johnny asks. “Please don’t let this ruin our friendship.”

Shaking his head, Taeyong stands up and mutters, “I’m sure you must be thrilled to be getting your cash from Mark and Yuta.”

Johnny sighs. “I didn’t do it for money. I called off the bet. And Jaehyun knew about the bet, anyway.” Johnny freezes and the math adds up in his head. “Wait— did you tell him about the bet?”

Offended, Taeyong narrows his eyes. “Of course I didn’t. It’s none of my business.”

Johnny blinks, confused. If Taeyong didn’t, then who did?

Taeyong clears his throat. “So. Are you guys, like, dating now?” The pain waivers in his voice.

“We’re not,” Johnny answers. “We might, though. We’re just testing stuff out and taking it slow.”

Taeyong swallows. “Good for you.”

“Is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?” Johnny asks.

“Uh— well, not particularly. It’s okay, though. I’ll get over it. You guys deserve to be happy.” Taeyong plasters on a fake smile for about half a second. “Just sucks a bit for me.”

“Listen, Taeyong,” Johnny begins. “I know Jaehyun still wants to be friends with you, too. We didn’t want to hurt you, I promise.”

“It’s just life,” Taeyong mumbles with a shrug, avoiding eye contact.

A few seconds pass, then Johnny asks, “Can we please still be friends?”

Taeyong hesitates then nods slightly and Johnny steps forward to embrace him in a hug.

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy,” Taeyong says. “We can try to make it work, though.”

Johnny lets go and smiles. “Let’s get ice cream tomorrow, okay?” he suggests.

Taeyong doesn’t smile but he says a half-hearted, “Sure.”

 

**< < end of freshman year >>**

Johnny hears a loud scream come from the center of the lake, where his friends are gathered. He turns around to face them and sees Mark panicking.

“My phone!” Mark cries with pure horror on his face. “I dropped it in the water!”

“Mark, how are you this clumsy?” Ten asks.

“He was just born like that,” Donghyuck chimes in with a shit-eating grin.

“Your awkwardness impresses me every day,” Taeyong tells Mark, who spitefully splashes the three of them with water.

“I’m going back in the cabin!” Johnny calls out to them. The sun has just set and the temperature’s starting to drop. He would like to not get hypothermia and actually survive his freshman year, thank you very much.

Johnny hears some splashing approach him and he peers behind to see Jaehyun swimming over to the edge of the lake to join him.

“I’ll go in with you,” Jaehyun says softly.

“You sure?” Johnny asks. “Looks like Mark could use some help out there.”

As if right on cue, Mark wails, “I’m going to die!”

They fetch towels from the chairs on the deck, dry themselves off, and then head inside the cabin. Johnny begins walking over to their shared room and the sound of Jaehyun’s footsteps follow him. Johnny turns around and laughs at his boyfriend.

“Are you following me?”

Jaehyun’s ears flush red. “I just wanna cuddle,” he admits sheepishly. “I’m cold.”

“Hmm,” Johnny says, pretending to contemplate the request. “I guess that can be arranged.”

Johnny pads over to the closet in their room, quickly slips on a hoodie, then flops down onto their bed. Jaehyun pulls a shirt on and then snuggles up at Johnny’s side, throwing an arm over Johnny’s midsection.

“Thanks for planning this trip,” Jaehyun mumbles, his soft voice filling up the silence.

“Thanks for inviting everyone,” Johnny says. He reaches a hand out to brush Jaehyun’s bangs to the side, then presses a chaste kiss to his forehead. “It’s been a great year.”

“Taeyong’s still a little bitter, you know. About us. And Ten probably is, too.”

Ten’s been quick to get over his relationship with Johnny. He’d told Johnny that he wanted him to be happy more than anything, and if just keeping things platonic between them made him happy, then he was fine with that. Sometimes he gets awkward when he’s left alone with just Johnny and Jaehyun, but overall he’s come to terms with their relationship.

Taeyong has had a harder time. It had taken him a month before he started putting effort into repairing his friendships with the two of them. Another two months on top of that before he was able to somewhat comfortably talk about Johnny’s relationship with Jaehyun.

“You think they’ll end up together?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun looks surprised. “I never thought about it. That would be an interesting dynamic, I suppose.”

“I bet they’ll get together by the end of next year,” Johnny claims.

“Speaking of bets, remember when your one goal for fall term was to sleep with me?”

“No,” Johnny lies. Then, “I had other goals, too! I wanted to succeed in the media club, if you don’t remember. And I’m sure I wanted to do well in my classes or something like that.”

“You were _so nice_ to me,” Jaehyun recalls. “You tried so hard to win me over. I wish you were still that nice.”

“Oh, shut up. I am. Why’d you play so hard to get, anyway?”

“Because it was funny,” Jaehyun says. “You were driving yourself crazy and it was cute and amusing to watch. Free entertainment and it took minimal effort on my part.”

“You’re awful,” Johnny mumbles. “You never even told me how you found out about the bet. I figured it was Taeyong, but he never wanted to admit it.”

“Oh,” Jaehyun begins. “You really don’t know?”

Johnny shakes his head.

“It’s someone who’s out on the lake right now.”

“Just tell me, dude. I’m too tired to think.”

“Donghyuck.”

“ _What_? How? I literally talked to him once at the very beginning of fall term and that was it. I didn’t even know he was your roommate.”

“That night,” Jaehyun begins, “where we got interrupted by the fire alarm, right before the convention. I texted him after you went back to your room and I told him about what happened between us and he told me he overheard you and your friends loudly talking about the bet in the lounge one afternoon. He was asleep on the couch and you guys just started arguing and he woke up and heard everything. He said you weren’t even trying to be quiet about it.”

Johnny can feel his heart rate quicken and he begins sweating. “Maybe we weren’t the smartest when it came to secrets,” he decides.

“Did you ever get the money?” Jaehyun asks.

“I never asked for it,” Johnny says. “Should I?”

Loud voices suddenly fill the cabin, coming from the kitchen.

“Now’s your chance,” Jaehyun says. “If they do give you money, I get half of it, okay?”

Johnny frowns. “I’ll think about it.”

“Boyfriend fees,” Jaehyun teases.

Johnny nudges Jaehyun off gently and the two of them walk towards the main part of the cabin. Yuta’s in the middle of smacking Taeyong with a towel when Johnny interrupts them to say, “You guys never paid me back for the bet from fall term.”

Mark snorts, looking up from his laptop. “We were never actually gonna pay you, by the way,” he says.

“We just wanted you to get with Jaehyun because Jaehyun had a disgustingly huge crush on you,” Yuta tacks on.

“That’s not true!” Jaehyun opposes.

“Platonic seven minutes in heaven just isn’t a thing, Jaehyun,” Yuta states. “Also Donghyuck told us you never shut up about Johnny _ever_ , even when you pretended you hated him, so we never called off the bet.”

“So I was scammed,” Johnny concludes.

Mark rolls his eyes. “You got paid with _love_ , isn’t that enough, you scrooge?”

Johnny narrows his eyes, then plops down on the couch next to Mark. “How’s your phone doing, Mark?” he asks, swiftly changing the subject.

Mark stutters a bit before saying, “I don’t think I’m getting it back.”

“What are you gonna do?” Ten asks, seated on the other side of Mark.

“Call 911.”

Johnny opens his mouth in confusion but he’s so lost that he can’t think of anything to say.

“Call 911? With what?” Ten asks.

Mark’s fingers suddenly freeze over his laptop keyboard. “Good point. I’ll email them, then.” He resumes typing.

Ten and Johnny exchange an outraged look. “And what is 911 gonna do about your lost phone?” Ten questions.

“File a report or something for a missing phone. Then when someone finds it they can return it to me.”

“Uh,” Johnny begins. “You realize that if anyone ever does end up finding your phone at the bottom of that lake, the phone will definitely be completely broken, right?”

Mark stops typing again. “ _Oh,_ right.”

Johnny leans over and hugs Mark. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

Later that night, Johnny sits cross-legged on the end of his bed. He’s got his phone out, but his attention’s honed in on Jaehyun, who’s currently hopping around the room and struggling to get a sock off his foot.

“You good?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun turns around and his ears turn red. “Why are you watching me?”

“You’re cute,” Johnny beams. “Also you’re literally leaping around like you’re on a pogo stick. It’s kind of hard to ignore the clumsiness.”

Once Jaehyun manages to get the sock off, he launches it at Johnny, who ducks out of the way with perfect timing. It lands on Jaehyun’s pillowcase and he lets out a groan.

“Go to bed already,” Jaehyun tells him.

“Waiting for you,” Johnny says.

Jaehyun wrinkles his nose, then pulls his shirt off. “You don’t have to wait for me. What are you, in love with me or something?” He tosses the shirt on top of his suitcase, too lazy to fold it properly, then walks over to the bed.

“You’re sleeping without a shirt on?” Johnny asks.

Jaehyun looks at him with innocent eyes. “Will that be a problem, babe?”

“You’re such a tease,” Johnny declares.

“You love it,” Jaehyun insists.

Johnny reaches over and turns off the lamp by his side of the bed, then they assume the normal position. Johnny’s always the big spoon – Jaehyun absolutely _refuses_ , and claims that he likes feeling small – so Johnny throws an arm around him and buries his face in the back of Jaehyun’s neck. Jaehyun smells sweet and fruity, and his hair is still a little damp from his shower (or _their_ shower, really).

Johnny finds it hard to fall asleep that night. He thinks about how lucky he is to have the sweetest boy in the world wrapped up in bed with him and how genuinely happy he is with his life. He thinks about how fortunate he is to have participated in that truth or dare game at the beginning of the school year and how glad he is that he signed up for the media club.

Ultimately, he doesn’t think he could’ve asked for a better freshman year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay wow!!! we've reached the end!! i didn't wanna leave any characters truly unhappy so i tried my best to mend relationships as well as they could be mended while still being realistic. i also didn't wanna have ten and taeyong just end up together since it would be pretty cliché so i left their friendship ambiguous  
> it feels great to finally have all of this posted and i really hope u guys liked this. thank you so so so much for all the support! <3  
> feel free to follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/180714jaehyun) as i am a v lonely girl  
> also dropping my [cc](https://curiouscat.me/180714jaehyun) if u have any questions or just wanna chat!


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